DEV Community: IO River

Multi-CDN Strategy: Benefits and Best Practices

Or Hillel — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 07:40:37 +0000

What is Multi-CDN?

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of geographically distributed servers that brings web content closer to where end users are located, to ensure high availability, optimized performance and low latency. Multi-CDN is the practice of employing a number of CDN providers simultaneously. This method augments the performance benefits of using a CDN while also ensuring redundancy and resilience and reducing costs.

To implement a M-CDN, organizations can use traffic management tools or Multi-CDN switching solutions that distribute and route content across the various CDN providers. Distribution is dynamic and will be determined and optimized in real-time, based on factors like performance, geographic reach, costs, use cases, and real-time conditions.

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Benefits of a M-CDN

There are multiple advantages for a Multi-CDN implementation. Some key advantages include:

1. Network Redundancy

The primary and most important advantage of a Multi-CDN strategy is redundancy, and, consequently, improved reliability. Outages are a common occurrence; a global outage could take the entire network down while local outages could force the CDN vendor to serve the traffic from a non-local PoP. The result would be a performance drop in the end users’ experience, often causing the application to become unusable. While these occurrences take place "only" a few times a year, local outages happen on a weekly, or even daily, basis.

A M-CDN enables enacting a failover strategy with additional CDN providers that have not been impacted. This ensures up to 5-nines of availability, minimizes the impact of disruptions, enables meeting SLAs and reduces the risk of a single point of failure.

2. Enhanced Performance

Another significant advantage of using multiple CDN providers is the improved content delivery performance for end users. Different CDN providers cover different regions to different extents. When using a single CDN, the organization is dependent on the CDN provider’s geographical coverage and server infrastructure. This coverage may not align with the organization's needs at all times.

Distributing content across multiple CDNs allows switching to the CDN with the best coverage and lowest latency for each user at any given time. This will result in faster load times that improve the user experience.

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3. Cost Optimization

M-CDN setups can help optimize content delivery costs. This is done by selectively choosing when to use different types of CDNs. While high premium CDNs provide a full set of features - including security services, edge computing and more - these come at a high cost. Standard CDNs, on the other hand, provide a more basic set of features, but at a lower cost. Organizations can use premium CDNs for critical tasks while cutting costs when performing simple or lower priority tasks by using standard CDNs.

In addition, different CDN providers offer competitive pricing models and packages. Organizations can select the most cost-effective option for each region or traffic type, reducing overall CDN expenses.

4. Flexibility

Multi-CDNs enable network professionals, IT, and DevOps teams to maximize the benefits offered by different CDN vendors. They provide flexibility in pricing by allowing the selection of the serving provider in specific areas or for specific portions of the traffic. The multi-vendor approach also allows leveraging the unique capabilities, such as unique Edge Computing functionality, offered by different providers. This flexibility provides customers with more control, increased bargaining power, and prevents them from being locked into a specific provider.

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Best Practices for Implementing a Multi-CDN

While the advantages of a M-CDN are clear, implementation is not as straightforward. A cautious approach is crucial when transitioning to a M-CDN architecture. The configuration of new CDNs is intricate and prone to errors. Even minor misconfigurations can lead to disruptive traffic interruptions.

To ensure a smooth transition, it is highly recommended to take the following best practices:

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1. Cherry Pick Your CDNs

Conduct a thorough evaluation of different CDN providers based on the requirements from best practice #1. Consider factors such as geographic coverage, server infrastructure, performance, CDN scalability, pricing models, features, and support services. Evaluate how well each provider can meet your specific requirements and objectives. Narrow the final choice down to two providers, run a POC and A/B test them over the course of a few weeks to determine which one can best answer your requirements.

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2. Configure Your New CDN

To effectively configure your new CDN, you need to replicate the settings of your primary CDN. Each role, policy and behavior needs to be manually and meticulously configured to align with the new CDN's engine, utilizing its API. Then, rigorous testing is necessary to ensure it functions properly. Otherwise, the result may be a deteriorated user experience, traffic loss and service unavailability.

3. Transit the Traffic Safely and Gradually

Once the CDN is configured, it’s time to proceed with a seamless and uninterrupted traffic transition that is based on Multi-CDN switching. It is recommended to employ an active/active strategy in a gradual manner. Begin by directing a small portion of the traffic to the new CDN. Progressively increase the volume of traffic being routed through it until the desired level is reached and you can rely on real-time switching.

4. Implement Traffic Management Tools

Utilize specialized traffic management tools or solutions to implement and manage your M-CDN effectively. Implementing such tools simplifies the management of a complex Multi-CDN environment. These tools can help automate traffic routing, monitor performance, collect data for analysis, and dynamically adjust traffic distribution based on real-time conditions. Make sure to never starve a CDN vendor - always keep all vendors with a portion of the traffic to keep the cache warm.

Many organizations use a DNS switching service, which routes traffic between the different CDNs. However, this method can become too rigid when conditions are dynamic, as it does not adjust levels of traffic according to changing needs. A DNS switching service also does not provide visibility into the traffic, making traffic management challenging and less accurate.

Alternatively, a Virtual Edge solution, a technology developed by IO River, provides visibility into traffic while enabling traffic routing management through a single interface. A Virtual Edge also simplifies the CDN configuration process by enabling IT, DevOps or network professionals to configure the CDN only once, and without having to manually configure each one. Traffic can then be safely and gradually rerouted. In case of an error, a Virtual Edge solution also enables reverting to the previous configuration easily and quickly.

5. Monitor and Optimize Performance and Availability

Continuously monitor the performance of each CDN provider and the overall M-CDN setup. Use real-time analytics and monitoring tools to detect any downtime and outages and to gather metrics like response times, latency and availability. Analyze this data to identify areas where you can improve and optimize traffic distribution for optimal performance.

6. Implement Failover and Redundancy Mechanisms

Failover and redundancy mechanisms can help ensure high availability and reliability. Define backup plans and strategies to automatically reroute traffic in case of CDN provider outages or performance issues. This helps minimize service disruptions and ensures consistent content delivery to end users. Avoid any manual failover plans - they fail to execute when you need them.

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Next Steps for IT Infrastructure, Network and DevOps Leaders

A M-CDN can be very beneficial for your organization, ensuring your traffic is always optimized and all global users get first-class citizen treatment. When determining how to transition from a single CDN vendor to a M-CDN, the first and most critical step is to define your KPIs. This will help you ensure you are en route to the desired outcome.

When you begin the transition, make sure to take it slowly and implement the new setup gradually. It is also recommended to have experienced professionals accompany you throughout the process. They will help you avoid any mistakes and ensure you and your users can benefit from the reliability and improved performance a Multi-CDN can provide.

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To learn more about IO River, the most advanced Virtual Edge solution for your Multi-CDN strategy, click here.

Optimizing CDN Architecture: Enhancing Performance and User Experience

Or Hillel — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 10:24:17 +0000

What is a CDN?

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A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers strategically located across multiple geographical locations to deliver web content to end users more efficiently. CDNs cache content on edge servers distributed globally, reducing the distance between users and the content they want.

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CDNs use load-balancing techniques to distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers called Points of Presence (PoPs) which distribute content closer to end-users and improve overall performance.

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What is CDN Architecture?

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CDN architecture serves as a blueprint or plan that guides the distribution of CDN provider PoPs. The two fundamentals of a CDN architecture revolve around distribution and capacity.

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The distribution aspect determines how widely the PoPs are scattered and how effectively they cover different regions. Capacity determines how much content it can store in its cache and how efficiently it can serve that content to users simultaneously.

The data center's capacity is dependent on factors such as CPU, memory, bandwidth, and the number of machines.

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CDN architecture also focuses on caching, load balancing, routing, and optimizing content delivery, which can be measured by: cache offloading and round-trip time (RTT).

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RTT is the duration in milliseconds (ms) it takes for a data packet to go from a starting point to a destination and return back to the original starting point. A lower RTT indicates a faster network response time and happier end users.

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Cache offloading accurately determines the cache's ability to provide content without requiring the content from the origin.

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And if it’s one thing a customer literally doesn’t have time for, it’s downtime. Five Nines availability or 99.999%, also referred to as "the gold standard" significantly reduces downtime (5.26 minutes of annual downtime to be precise) and ensures that critical operations can continue to flow without disruption.

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All these elements combined serve as the blueprint of a CDN architecture.

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The Four Pillars of CDN Design

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CDN architecture can be broken down into several building blocks, known as the Four Pillars of CDN Design.

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Reliability

‍Reliability is the foundation of maintaining a consistent user experience. When an edge server goes down, end users in the affected region may experience an increase in latency for that specific location. This is because their requests need to be rerouted to an alternative server, which could be much farther away from the user's location.

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The CDN should be designed with propagation as it enhances content availability, mitigates the impact of server failures, minimizes latency due to traffic rerouting, and greatly assists in the recovery and resilience of the CDN.

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Performance

‍The number and distribution of PoPs play a crucial role in performance. Having more PoPs in diverse locations reduces latency by bringing content closer to end-users, and minimizing the distance data needs to travel.

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Ensure that your CDN provider has a broad and well-distributed network coverage with an extensive number of PoPs. A larger network footprint allows for content to be cached closer to end-users, reducing latency and improving performance.

Scalability‍

When planning for scalability, it’s essential to evaluate your business roadmap and identify target regions where you plan to expand. Your CDN should have edge servers strategically placed in these locations. These optimizations ensure that your CDN can handle growing user demands while maintaining fast and efficient content delivery.

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‍Responsiveness‍

Edge caching is another fundamental building block that helps enhance responsiveness. By caching frequently accessed content at edge servers within PoPs, CDNs reduce the need for content retrieval from the origin server. This minimizes response times, improves content delivery speed, and enhances overall responsiveness for your end-users.

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CDN Topology

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CDN topology describes how the network is organized and how its components are interconnected to efficiently deliver content to end-users. Here are a few examples.

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Centralized CDN

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In a centralized CDN, the emphasis is on larger PoPs strategically located in key countries/cities, while a distributed CDN aims to have a presence in several PoPs in every city to minimize the distance between content servers and end users.

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Advantages

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Since the PoPs are much larger, there is a significant increase in the cache capacity at the Edge.
Agile configuration deployment - since there are much fewer PoPs the configuration deployments are much simpler and faster
Reduced maintenance costs - the CDN is required to maintain the presence in much fewer data centers

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Disadvantages

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Higher RTT due to fewer PoPs. On average, the “edge” PoPs of a centralized CDN tend to be located farther away from the end user compared to a distributed CDN.
Inconsistencies in performance across different regions - a small amount of PoPs might create significant differences in performance for different geo-locations.

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The Distributed CDN

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In a Distributed CDN, PoPs are strategically positioned or scattered in as possibly more different regions or network locations to minimize latency and improve content delivery performance. The focus is on providing optimal physical proximity, so it’s not uncommon to see many PoPs grouped together within a small radius of each other.

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Distributed CDN is more affected by the local networks infrastructure they lease, there is a significant disparity between developing countries and developed countries.

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Advantages

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Closer physical proximity minimizes latency (RTT) - in distributed CDN the PoPs are as close as possible to end user
Faster speeds in low-connectivity areas - the impact of distributed CDN becomes even higher in low-connectivity areas, since in these areas the RTT to centralized CDN edge PoP is significantly higher compared to distributed CDN.

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Disadvantages

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Distributed PoPs create more complexity and increase maintenance costs - required the CDN to maintain present in more data centers
Deploying new configurations is more cumbersome - since the network is much more distributed, configuration updates, purges and more operations are taking more time (more locations and servers should be in sync).
Due to the aim of getting as close as possible to the end-user in a distributed architecture, Cache Management becomes an issue. Each PoP tries to keep content as 'hot' as possible, which leads to many small PoPs with relatively small coverage areas holding the same content.

In this scenario, a Cache Miss will cause the PoP to access a remote Data Center to fetch the content.

Higher cache miss on edge compared to a centralized solution - in distributed CDN the PoPs are much smaller compared to a centralized CDN and therefore the chance for cache misses on the Edge increases. Although, Cache Miss is even worse thanks to the Cache management issue mentioned above.

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In the early days of the CDN (Content Delivery Network) industry, successfully constructing a network that brought content as close as possible to the end-user was considered a significant commercial achievement. However, as the years passed, the quality of infrastructures improved significantly, reducing the advantages of Distributed CDNs compared to Centralized systems.

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CDN Architecture Optimization

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If you opt for a distributed CDN, you might want to consider utilizing cache tiers within the CDN. Cache tiers are a way to organize the caching infrastructure to improve cache hit rates and overall performance. This is where Origin Shield comes into place.

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Origin Shield is a crucial component of the cache tier architecture in a distributed CDN. It is a caching mechanism utilized in CDNs to prevent the origin server from being overwhelmed by a high volume of requests during cache misses.

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The Origin Shield acts as a buffer in the middle. It drives down the number of requests sent to the origin server to reduce cost and improves the overall efficiency of content delivery within the CDN topology.

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How to Reduce Your CDN Infrastructure Expenses

Or Hillel — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 10:24:17 +0000

Common Infrastructure Expenses

Your first step in optimizing CDN expenses isn’t to look for the best-priced solution but to remember that a cheaper price isn’t always the best deal. A low-cost CDN may not always be as reliable and high-performing as a high-cost one. Therefore, you need to make sure you have the right balance between costs and performance & reliability according to your business needs.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before choosing a CDN:

How important is the price to you? If price is your top priority, you'll need to decide how much you're willing to sacrifice in terms of reliability and performance.
What are your traffic patterns like? If your traffic is mostly static, you may be able to meet all your needs with a less expensive CDN that provides content distribution services. However, if your traffic is dynamic, you'll need a CDN that can adapt.
What features are important to you? Some CDNs offer features like security and load balancing. If these features are important to you, you'll need to factor them into your decision. For example, if you’re deploying the infrastructure for an e-commerce website, security becomes a fundamental requirement. You will probably look at CDNs that support security payment transfers, security authentications, customer PII protections, WAFs, and more.

Your CDN Bill

Typically, your CDN bill will be calculated according to two types of costs: the costs related to the delivery of traffic and the costs of special add-on services.

Delivery of Traffic - The costs related to the delivery of traffic are usually tied to your data volume and the geographical region traffic is being routed to.‍
Add-on Services - Special services can include capabilities like security features (WAF, Origin Shield), resource capping (rate limiting), image/video optimization, and more.

CDN Pricing Examples

1) Amazon Cloudfront’s data routing prices are determined according to amount of traffic and region. For example, the first 10TB to South America cost $0.11.

Source: Amazon Cloudfront Pricing

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Additional special features like Edge Compute or Origin Shield are priced separately. For example, Lambda@Edge request pricing is $0.6 per one million requests. Origin Shield costs $0.009 for 10,000 requests to Singapore.

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Source: Amazon Cloudfront Pricing

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2) Fastly’s offers a number of pricing plans. One of them is usage based pricing, which, similar to Amazon, is divided into bandwidth per geographic region and additional capabilities, like security and Edge.

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Source: Fastly Pricing Page

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Tips for Reducing CDN Infrastructure Expenses

Now that you know what your bill is made up of, let’s talk about how to reduce it. CDN infrastructure cost reduction can be achieved by taking the following steps:

1. Optimize CDN Settings to Reduce Costs

You can configure your CDN to ensure you’re not making extra unnecessary payments. For example:

Configure the Browser Cache TTL settings to ensure content is saved on the user’s browser, instead of having to deliver traffic from the origin or the CDN server in a more costly manner.
Optimize your cache key in CDN to ensure that it includes only mandatory information and avoid duplications (same object with multiple cache keys)
Segment traffic and prevent unnecessary traffic from being delivered to places it does not need to go, but you are paying for.

2. Transition to a Multi-CDN Setup

A multi-CDN strategy has multiple advantages, like ensuring network redundancy and enhanced performance. When it comes to your budget, an M-CDN strategy is the preferred option as well.

Negotiate from a Stronger Standpoint

Alternatively, working with multiple CDN vendors opens you up for negotiating with each vendor. When vendors know you have other options, they will reduce prices to ensure you choose to route your traffic through them.

Make the Most from Each CDN

Working with a few CDNs also lets you cherry-pick the routes and services you need from each vendor. This ensures you pay only for the delivery and services you need and you’re not constrained to their services bundles. Finally, when working with multiple vendors, you can choose to split the traffic across different geographies and routes, choosing the routes with the best rates, saving you money on CDN bandwidth costs.

Let’s say Vendor A charges $0.085 for the first 10TB to North America and $0.114 for Australia and New Zealand, while Vendor B charges $0.09 for the first 10TB to North America and $0.11 for Australia and New Zealand.

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If an organization uses a single vendor, they are forced to determine where the majority of their traffic is being routed to, North America or Oceania, choose the vendor that has the lower price for that destination and bite the bullet when they have to route traffic to the more expensive location.

But by working with both vendors A and B the organization can negotiate for a lower price or choose to route traffic to North America from Vendor A and to Oceania from Vendor B.

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3. Create an M-CDN Mix of Standard and Premium CDNs

Not all CDN providers are created equal. Some are standard, offering the basic services you need to ensure traffic routing and low latency, while others offer premium services like advanced security capabilities. As can be expected, premium CDN vendors also charge a premium price.

To reduce costs, you can create a multi-CDN strategy that combines both standard and premium CDNs. Then, build a strategy that determines when traffic is routed through each CDN. Any traffic that can be routed through standard CDNs, should be routed there, at a lower price.

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When should traffic be routed through a premium CDN?

When you use special services only premium CDNs provide (such as WAF)
When standard CDNs are down and you need failover.
When the standard CDN’s performance is lower than your predetermined threshold (we recommend allowing for a 5% delta)

We recommended implementing a management layer that will automatically detect any failover or performance degradation and can route your traffic to the premium CDNs.

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4. Capacity Commitment

Committing to a certain capacity for CDNs saves money by giving you a discounted rate on CDN bandwidth and storage. By committing to a certain amount for a year, the CDN vendor provides a discount. For example, Amazon CloudFront offers a Reserved CDN pricing plan that can save you up to 30% on bandwidth.

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5. Split and Separate Static and Dynamic Traffic

Static traffic is traffic that is cached close to the user and stored and served to them by the nearest server. Dynamic traffic, on the other hand, is personalized and served from the origin server. This means they need to be handled differently, in terms of security and performance.

If static and dynamic traffic are both routed the same way, organizations are incurring extra unnecessary costs. This is due to the implementation of unnecessary measures on both types of traffic. For example, static traffic does not require the same level of security that dynamic traffic does. Therefore, it’s recommended to ensure each traffic type is configured separately by using different DNS subdomains.

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Your Next Steps

High CDN costs are not set in stone. By implementing the right practices, you can significantly reduce your CDN bill and CDN infrastructure expenses. Maximize your investment by adopting a multi-CDN strategy, negotiating effectively, and optimizing traffic distribution. Following these tips will earn appreciation from your CFO.

To learn more about IO River, the most advanced Virtual Edge solution for your Multi-CDN strategy, click here.

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** Please note these examples are not exhaustive and do not represent the full pricing list by these companies

How to Monitor the Performance of Dynamic Content

Or Hillel — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 10:24:17 +0000

A Common Mistake Which Everyone does When it Comes to Measure Performance of Dynamic Content

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Monitoring the performance of your traffic is vital.

IT experts frequently rely on the performance measurements of static content, as a strong indication of Edge platform functionality.

They assume that this indication reflects also the performance of the Edge for their dynamic content.

If your online service heavily relies on dynamic traffic, you must take a closer look at it.

Trust me, you might be SURPRISED by the results.

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How to Measure your Dynamic Content's Performance

Dynamic and static traffics are SO DIFFERENT by the way they perform.

Dynamic traffic versus static traffic is making a long way and passing more hops and services on the way.

So how and what to measure (take a look at the illustration below).

Dynamic traffic starts its journey at the end-user, goes through the CDN to the origin, and travels back.

Let’s break it down into four parts:

(A) Time From End user to CDN
(B) Time inside the CDN platform
(C) Time From CDN to Data Center
(D) Time inside the Data Center itself
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How to measure each part:

(A) Measure by performance tests for cacheable content
(A+B+C+D) Measured by RUM (Real User Monitoring) or dedicated synthetic checks of dynamic traffic.
(D) By running performance testing on your infrastructure.
*(B+C) Not trivial to measure (In a second, I will show you how to calculate it)
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The way from the CDN to the Data Center (B + C), can be tremendously long and complex. It has a critical impact on the overall performance of dynamic traffic. This part needs to get more appropriate attention.

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With the simple formula I’ve shared below you can easily measure the performance from CDN to origin (marked as “B+C” in the illustration).

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So Why The "B+C" Part is So Critical

End-user request for dynamic content through CDN travels to the nearest CDN’s hop. Then the request travels through the CDN's global network until it reaches its origin.

Every CDN provider has a different algorithm that decided how to route the traffic to the data center. The decision-making process is further impacted by variables such as geo-location, time, network load, and the quality of the internet infrastructure.

It is a bit frustrating to not be able to pave the way for your request in your CDN provider’s network. But it is vital to acknowledge where your weakness in terms of performance.

Conclusion

I recommended running performance tests and collecting the measurements determined above*.

I would recommend analyzing B+C metrics to find opportunities to improve performance and take these metrics into consideration when you choose or evaluate the performance of your edge platform.

* Geo-location, time, network load, and the quality of the internet infrastructure and the content itself have a significant impact on the test result. Make sure you take it under your consideration

Dynamic Content Vs. Static Content: What Are the Main Differences

Or Hillel — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 10:24:17 +0000

Overview

Dynamic and static content plays a huge part in building modern applications. But what exactly is the difference between the two? Consider the following table:

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Figure: A high-level representation of Dynamic vs. Static content

Static content refers to content that will not change and can often be served using a CDN. However, dynamic content refers to ever-changing content that is often difficult to serve through a CDN due to its personalized nature, which often results in a slow delivery time.

However, this just scrapes the surface of dynamic and static content. Do continue reading to gain a deep dive into static and dynamic content, its differences, pros, and cons while focusing on the best ways to optimize performance on websites that use such content.

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What is Static Content?

Static content represents fixed web elements like HTML, CSS, JavaScript files, images, and media assets. These are unchanging entities, served straight off the server, pre-generated, and devoid of server-side processing. This is where Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) come into play. They cache static content and enable lightning-fast delivery around the globe.

This symbiosis reduces server load, boosts loading times, and ensures efficient content distribution. But remember, static content trades off real-time personalization for speed and consistency, lacking in dynamic interactivity.

Static content and CDNs are a power duo, delivering your site's unvarying elements at unparalleled speed.

Pros and Cons of Static Content

Pros of Static Content:

Caching Benefits: Static content is highly cacheable. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), web browsers, and proxy servers can store static files in their caches. This means that subsequent requests for the same content can be served directly from the cache, eliminating the need for additional server-side processing. Caching improves performance, reduces bandwidth usage, and enhances scalability by reducing the load on the origin server.
Faster Loading Times: Static content is pre-generated and does not require server-side processing. As a result, it can be delivered quickly to users, leading to faster page load times. This improved speed enhances user experience and reduces bounce rates, as visitors are more likely to stay engaged on a fast-loading website.
Lower Server Load: Since static content does not require dynamic generation for each user request, it puts less strain on web servers. This lower server load allows servers to handle more concurrent connections and efficiently serve more users simultaneously. It is particularly beneficial during high-traffic periods or when serving content to a large audience.

All of these benefits apply to modern applications that process user thumbnails. These are clearly defined static content that doesn't change regularly. Therefore, it is highly beneficial when it is drawn from a cache.

Cons of Static Content:

Limited Interactivity: Static content lacks interactivity and cannot dynamically respond to user actions or input. It cannot provide personalized experiences or real-time updates based on user behavior or preferences. This limitation restricts the engagement and dynamic functionality offered to website visitors.
Personalization Challenges: It lacks the flexibility to offer personalized experiences tailored to individual users. Static files are identical for all visitors, thus, making personalized dynamic content adaptations challenging. However, with the advent of third-party applications, this limitation is being overcome to some extent. For instance, Image Optimization services can take a static image and generate numerous variations tailored to different devices. This means that while static content may inherently lack personalization, modern technologies are emerging that can manipulate it to deliver a more personalized experience. Nevertheless, these solutions require integrating other technologies or server-side processing, which might introduce complexity.
Maintenance Complexity for Large Websites: Large websites with extensive static content may face challenges managing and organizing their files effectively. Keeping track of multiple static files, ensuring consistent naming conventions, and managing file dependencies can become complex. As the website grows, the maintenance of static content can become more cumbersome and require robust content management practices.

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What is Dynamic Content?

Dynamic content, conversely, refers to web content generated in real-time based on user interactions, data inputs, or other contextual factors and has grown in popularity by 40% over the last ten years.

This involves server-side processing, database queries, and scripting languages like PHP, Python, or JavaScript frameworks.

Pros and Cons of Dynamic Content

Pros of Dynamic Content:

Personalized User Experiences: Dynamic content facilitates a highly tailored user experience by customizing the content according to individual preferences, behavior, or demographic data. For instance, a streaming service like Netflix utilizes dynamic content to recommend shows and movies based on a user's viewing history, enhancing user engagement and improving conversion rates. The adaptive nature of dynamic content fosters a sense of personal connection with the users, thereby boosting customer loyalty.
Real-time Updates: Dynamic content provides the advantage of real-time updates, ensuring that users always see the most recent information. For example, BBC and CNN benefit greatly from dynamic content. Their pages are continuously updated with breaking news stories without the need for manual intervention. This feature keeps the content fresh and relevant, ensuring users can always access the most current news.
Interactive Functionality: Dynamic content enhances websites with interactive features, encouraging users to engage with the site actively. Social media platforms like Facebook are prime examples of sites leveraging dynamic content. They allow users to share posts, like, comment, and interact in various other ways, offering a dynamic and immersive user experience. These interactive features boost user participation, promote social sharing, and foster a sense of community.

Cons of Dynamic Content:

Increased Server Load: Dynamic content requires server-side processing and database queries to generate the content for each user request. This increased server load can strain server resources, especially during high-traffic periods. Heavy server load can lead to slower response times, longer page load times, and potential performance issues if not correctly optimized. For example, consider tools like ChatGPT. Under high load, ChatGPT often tends to go down and remain unusable until the traffic becomes stable.
Complexity and Development Time: Implementing dynamic content involves more complex development processes than static content. It requires expertise in server-side scripting languages, database management, and integration with content management systems or APIs. Developing, testing, and maintaining dynamic range can take more time and effort, especially for complex or customized functionalities.
Caching Limitations: Caching dynamic content poses challenges compared to static content. Since dynamic range is generated on-the-fly, it may have limited caching potential. While caching mechanisms can be implemented for certain dynamic elements, caching the entire dynamic content of a website may not be feasible. This can impact performance and increase the server load when handling repeated requests for dynamic content.
Higher Bandwidth Consumption: Dynamic content often involves more data transfer between the server and the user's device than static content. Each dynamic request may require transmitting additional data, such as HTML templates, database records, and dynamically generated media. This increased bandwidth consumption can affect server costs, network performance, and user data usage.

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How Can You Boost Website Performance?

To boost website performance, organizations can employ various techniques, regardless of whether they primarily serve static or dynamic content:

Leverage Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Implementing a CDN can significantly enhance website performance. CDNs are a network of distributed servers strategically located around the world. By storing cached copies of your website's static content in multiple data centers, CDNs bring content closer to end users, reducing latency and improving load times. By offloading the delivery of static files, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, to the CDN servers, your website can benefit from faster content delivery and reduced server load.
Utilize CDN Caching: CDNs employ caching techniques to store static content closer to the end user. Configuring proper cache settings ensures that frequently accessed content remains cached at edge servers for faster retrieval. This reduces the load on your origin server and improves response times. Additionally, CDNs often offer intelligent caching mechanisms, such as edge-side caching and content purging, allowing you to have granular control over cache management.
Dynamic Content Acceleration: CDNs aren't limited to caching static content alone. Advanced CDNs also offer dynamic content acceleration capabilities. By leveraging edge computing technologies, CDNs can dynamically generate and deliver personalized or dynamic content closer to the end user. This reduces the latency associated with retrieving dynamic content from the origin server, resulting in faster delivery and improved user experience.
Adopt a Multi-CDN Architecture: It's important to note that not all CDNs perform at the same level in all regions. Thus, a Multi-CDN strategy can be invaluable to maximizing global reach and reducing latency indeed. This involves using multiple CDN providers to ensure your content is served from the closest server and the most effective CDN in a specific region. For example, there are stark performance differences in Time to First Byte (TTFB) between two CDNs operating within the same region. This evidence suggests that a Multi-CDN approach, routing traffic to the most effective CDN based on real-time performance data, can substantially enhance your website's performance. By doing so, you can achieve superior content delivery and user experience, irrespective of the user's geographical location.

Understanding the Importance of 5 Nines Availability

Or Hillel — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 10:24:17 +0000

What is 5 Nines Availability?

In an age where mainly all services that businesses provide their customers run on computing technology, it is crucial that companies understand the importance of providing reliable access to their systems.

In determining a business's value to its clients, the level of service it provides is often a key metric. Service quality can be assessed based on various factors like ease of use, accessibility, security, reliability, and others, all of which contribute to consumer satisfaction. However, consumers often prioritize availability in many systems. Furthermore, there are many recognized standards to measure the availability of a service or system, and the most common one is to measure it as a percentage.

"Five Nines" (99.999%) - The gold standard

Typically we measure availability starting from "one nine" (90%) and move up to "nine nines" (99.9999999%). Within this range, Five Nines availability is often considered the gold standard for availability in critical systems. This level of availability equates to only about 5.26 minutes of downtime per year, which means the system is almost always operational. Besides, here are a few reasons why 99.999% is considered the gold standard:

Reduction of Downtime: By achieving five nines, organizations significantly reduce their risk of prolonged service outages that can have a major impact on operations.
Customer Expectation: In today's digital age, customers expect services to be available whenever they need them. This is especially true for online businesses, where customers may quickly switch to a competitor if they experience service unavailability.
Business Continuity: Many businesses depend on their IT services for day-to-day operations. A high availability helps ensure that these operations can continue with minimal interruption.
Competitive Advantage: Companies that can achieve and maintain a high level of availability may have a competitive advantage over companies that have more frequent and longer-lasting service outages. These days, users are very sensitive to lagging user experiences and don't hesitate to find alternatives when they are unsatisfied.
Reduction of Revenue: System availability directly impacts revenue by influencing customer satisfaction and retention. Consistent accessibility lead to increased engagement and revenue, while downtime or unavailability result in frustrated customers and loss in sales.

This article delves into the concept of 5-Nine availability while shedding light on its significance and what businesses can do to adopt this level of availability.

The Significance of Availability

We often consider availability one of the most important characteristics when designing a service or system, and neglecting availability can have catastrophic consequences for an organization's operations, reputation, and overall performance.

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Some of the potential consequences of not considering availability are:

Customer Satisfaction

The availability directly influences customer satisfaction. Customers expect seamless service access and minimal downtime in a highly competitive landscape. When organizations neglect availability, customers experience frustration and inconvenience and may seek alternative solutions. It leads to a loss of trust and loyalty, resulting in decreased customer retention and potential revenue loss.

Airlines rely significantly on digital technology and online platforms to provide customers with seamless booking experiences, flight information, and other critical services. Delta Air Lines experienced a severe system outage in 2017, resulting in flight cancellations and delays across their network. This interruption caused customer discontent, inconvenience, and a major loss of trust in the airline's capacity to provide dependable services.

Revenue Generation

Downtime wreaks havoc on a business, affecting revenue, transactions, and customer engagement. Whether it's an e-commerce platform, a banking system, or a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider, downtime can result in lost sales, dissatisfied consumers, and financial losses.

As one of the world's largest online retailers, Amazon relies heavily on its website and digital infrastructure to facilitate sales and generate revenue. In 2013, Amazon experienced a brief outage that lasted approximately 30 minutes. Despite the short duration, the downtime resulted in an estimated loss of over $66,240 per minute, totaling millions of dollars in potential revenue loss for the company.

Brand Reputation and Credibility

Long downtime or frequent service interruptions can harm a brand's trust and reputation. Negative experiences can swiftly spread through social media and other platforms, worsening the impact on the brand's image. Regaining trust and a favorable reputation is a difficult and time-consuming process.

In July 2020, Twitter experienced a significant outage that lasted for several hours, rendering the platform inaccessible to millions of users worldwide. This outage disrupted users' ability to access and engage with the platform but also raised concerns about the platform's reliability and stability.

As Twitter serves as a vital communication channel for individuals, businesses, and even public figures, the outage attracted widespread attention and negative feedback on social media and in the news. The incident directly impacted Twitter's brand reputation, with users expressing frustration and disappointment over the lack of availability.

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Competitive Advantage

In a crowded market, availability can be a significant differentiator. Prioritizing and achieving high availability gives organizations a competitive advantage. Customers who value uninterrupted access to services prefer reliability, which becomes a selling factor. Businesses can outperform competitors and establish themselves as industry leaders by providing a superior client experience.

Netflix, a leading player in this industry, has built its reputation on providing uninterrupted access to a vast library of movies and TV shows. By investing in robust infrastructure and implementing a multi-CDN strategy, Netflix ensures the high availability of its streaming service across various devices and regions. In 2018, when a major competitor, Hulu, experienced a significant outage during a highly anticipated live event broadcast, Netflix capitalized on the situation.

Leveraging its reputation for reliability and availability, Netflix cleverly promoted its service with messages like "Still streaming, not buffering" and offered free trial subscriptions during the outage period. This strategic response showcased Netflix's ability to maintain uninterrupted service and positioned the company as a more dependable choice for streaming entertainment.

Contract Violations and Penalties

When companies enter into agreements with vendors, they commonly establish specific uptime requirements or SLAs. These legally binding agreements hold the vendors accountable for meeting the agreed-upon obligations. To ensure reliability, these contracts often include provisions for financial penalties imposed on vendors in the event of contract violations. This can take various forms, such as monetary fines, service credits, or compensatory measures, aiming to offset the revenue losses incurred by the company due to the vendor's failure to provide a dependable service.

British Airways (BA) IT system failure in 2017. The failure resulted in the cancellation and delay of numerous flights, causing significant disruptions for thousands of passengers.

As a result of this incident, BA faced legal action and potential penalties from affected passengers and regulatory authorities. The company had to compensate customers for their losses, including reimbursement for flights, accommodation, and $135,000 over tarmac delays.

What Is The Process For Calculating Availability?

By knowing how to calculate the availability of a service or system, we can understand its reliability. This calculation calculates the system's availability, thus allowing organizations to address potential issues hindering the optimal working state.

The following formula can be used to calculate the availability:

Availability = ((Total Available Time - Total Downtime) / Total Available Time) * 100

An example of using this formula to calculate the total availability of a specific system is:

Let's assume that a system experienced a total downtime of 20 hours annually. Using this formula, we can calculate the total availability of this specific system.

Number of hours in a year: 8,760 hours

Total downtime of the system: 20 hours

Availability = ((8,760 - 20) / 8,760) * 100

Availability = 99.77%

Therefore the availability of this system is 99.77%.

Contrasting 5 Nines Availability Against Other Levels of Availability

As discussed in this article, various levels of availability correspond to specific durations during which a service or system is expected to experience downtime. It is essential to identify what each of these levels entails before building any service or system since the level of availability required directly translates into the effort and measures put in place to ensure its availability. It is also crucial to understand that not all systems require the highest level of availability, and organizations must consider an appropriate level of availability during evaluation.

The table below shows the downtime expected for each availability level ranging from 90% to 99.999%.

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How to calculate availability

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The lowest level of availability mentioned within this table is "one nine" or 90% availability. However, the dynamic and competitive nature of businesses today makes running a system with an approximate downtime of over a month per year unacceptable.

Therefore by default, the lowest acceptable level of availability must be "two nine" or 99% availability. This level ensures that the service or system only encounters approximately 3.36 days of downtime annually. Even though this is a significant downtime for a very critical service or system, some businesses may be able to afford this level of downtime for one of their non-critical systems.

moving up on the availability levels, we encounter the "five nine" availability level. This level of availability ensures that the service or system only undergoes approximately 5 minutes and 26 seconds of downtime annually. It significantly lowers the downtime for the service or system and ensures it is operational throughout the year. This level of downtime is crucial when running systems or services related to susceptible operations such as payment processing or managing critical infrastructure.

Industries That Demand High Levels of Availability

Industries that rely heavily on continuous operation and minimal downtime demand high availability to ensure their crucial systems and services run smoothly. Let us look at some notable examples of industries that place a high priority on availability:

‍E-commerce and Retail

The increasing digitization of commerce means consumers expect seamless, around-the-clock shopping experiences. High availability is a business imperative in this sector. Every second of downtime not only equates to lost sales but it can also harm a company's reputation and customer trust. The stakes are even higher during high-traffic periods such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Outages during these periods can turn potential peak revenue periods into public relations nightmares. In addition, digital inventory management and point-of-sale systems rely on high availability to ensure accurate stock numbers and smooth transactions, preventing stock-outs or overselling, which can lead to customer dissatisfaction and logistical challenges.

‍Gaming

‍With millions of players worldwide often playing simultaneously, online gaming companies cannot afford significant downtime without risking player satisfaction and potential revenue. Many games, like Fortnite or World of Warcraft, have worldwide fanbases that expect the ability to play at any time. Even short periods of unavailability can lead to significant backlash from the player base, negatively impacting brand reputation. The importance of high availability is further underscored in the rapidly growing esports sector, where significant prize money is often at stake, and any downtime can have substantial ramifications. In massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), where players can trade virtual goods, downtime can even have real-world financial implications for players. As a result, gaming companies invest heavily in infrastructure to ensure five nines availability, using technologies such as distributed systems and failover mechanisms.

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SaaS (Software as a Service)

SaaS companies are not only limited to productivity tools and CRM systems. Another category that forms a critical part of many businesses operations is monitoring tools. Companies like Datadog and New Relic provide real-time monitoring and analytics for IT infrastructure and application performance, helping companies quickly identify and rectify issues before they can cause significant harm. Given these tools' crucial role in maintaining system health and preventing outages, their availability becomes paramount. If these monitoring tools face downtime, businesses could be left in the dark about the status and performance of their systems, preventing them from detecting and addressing issues promptly. This blind spot can potentially lead to longer and more harmful system outages, highlighting why it's vital for such SaaS providers to strive for five-nines availability. Furthermore, since many businesses today operate globally and round the clock, these monitoring services must be available 24/7 to support their clients. Any lapse in monitoring could result in unnoticed system issues, potentially disrupting business operations and leading to revenue and reputation losses.

‍Travel & Leisure‍

Today's travel industry relies heavily on online platforms, from flight and hotel bookings to experiential reservations. These platforms cater to global users across different time zones, making 24/7 availability crucial. Downtime can lead to immediate loss of bookings and revenue and disrupt travelers' plans, leading to a poor customer experience and potential reputational damage. The need for high availability becomes even more critical during peak travel seasons or events. For instance, an outage during a ticket launch for a major event could cause significant customer dissatisfaction and potential revenue loss.

Best Practices for Achieving 5-Nines with Multi-CDN Architecture

Implementing a Multi-CDN architectural strategy for service providers is regarded best practice for achieving 5-nines (99.999%) availability as it is virtually impossible to achieve this level of availability with only a single CDN service. The key benefit of employing a Multi-CDN strategy is its increased reliability and redundancy. The impact of outages can be reduced by dispersing traffic across numerous CDNs, resulting in a more smooth user experience.

Adopting an Active-Active policy is a critical component of a successful Multi-CDN approach. In contrast to an Active-Passive strategy in which one CDN serves all traffic, Active-Active distribution permits traffic to be distributed across two or more CDNs. This assures that anyone CDN can manage the traffic demand, proving each configuration's stability and capability.

Monitoring is crucial to achieving acceptable availability levels. It is critical to detect and respond quickly to local or global outages. Local outages might cause traffic to be routed to non-local Points of Presence (PoPs), considerably decreasing performance and usability. Organizations can immediately discover difficulties and implement failover procedures to divert traffic to an alternate CDN by using monitoring tools that sample traffic performance from the client side.

Furthermore, having a monitoring system that provides real-time alerts and insights allows for immediate action to reduce possible interruptions. Proactive monitoring aids in detecting performance bottlenecks, latency difficulties, and other anomalies that may influence availability. Organizations may optimize their Multi-CDN arrangement by exploiting these insights, providing consistent and reliable performance for end users.

Relying on a manual failover backup plan is a risky. In discussions we have had with dozens of DevOps and IT managers, we have found that manual backup plans are difficult to execute and can introduce numerous unpredictable issues. We strongly recommend avoiding that approach.

Conclusion

Organizations in different industries rely on their systems being reliable and available for their consumers to access immediately. Even though varying levels of availability are defined, we need to ensure that appropriate analysis is conducted before selecting an appropriate level for our service or system.

While networks and connectivity have become crucial aspects in providing the availability of a system or service, it is essential to understand the role that CDNs play within this area. CDNs allow users to connect seamlessly to applications through their vast array of edge locations, thus allowing failover and traffic management capabilities to maintain high levels of availability.

In conclusion, availability takes unparalleled importance in the decision-making process since it can have severe repercussions on the systems and the organizations themselves; therefore, understanding the importance of availability is crucial.