What is Cloudflare ? How does it help webmasters ?

[MattW]

Can you tell me more about your experience/analysis of cdn77.com? I'm assessing CDN options/alternatives and these guys look terrific - easy to setup, free shared ssl, and cheaper than Amazon CloudFront too. Thanks.

Who are you using at the minute Mouth? I've just set mysely up with CloudFront, and everything seems really good so far, apart from their usage reporting. CSV files.....come on Amazon!

 

[MattW]

I've just set up cdn77 to test, as you get 14 days free trial. Initial impressions are slightly slower the amazon, but it looks like my IP address from work is being served from the US rather than the UK. Will need to check at home for a proper speed test.

However, the admin side of it is miles in front of Amazon. Set up is exactly the same, but there are so many more features. Proper usage reports and graphing. Traffic analysis is a lot clearer

 

[Mouth]

Who are you using at the minute Mouth?

I was using CloudFront and then my ISP announced 6 mths ago they were beta testing their own CDN and I jumped aboard. After just recently asking if their CDN supported https, I have found they are actually partnering with cdn77 for their CDN services, so have really been using them for ~6 mths I don't have access to any of those sexy usage reports and graphing though
Is one of those "many more features" include the ability to restrict CDN be geo-ip? For example, I would like to say that only end-users in xx region are served by the CDN and everyone else is served by my server - helps manage CDN costs

 

[MattW]

I was using CloudFront and then my ISP announced 6 mths ago they were beta testing their own CDN and I jumped aboard. After just recently asking if their CDN supported https, I have found they are actually partnering with cdn77 for their CDN services, so have really been using them for ~6 mths I don't have access to any of those sexy usage reports and graphing though
Is one of those "many more features" include the ability to restrict CDN be geo-ip? For example, I would like to say that only end-users in xx region are served by the CDN and everyone else is served by my server - helps manage CDN costs

I've had a look around, and you can't select users from a certain region to be served by XX or else your own server.

You can however, specify which POPs to use per CDN you have set up, so you can choose to route certain members via more local POPs in your chosen region.

I've got everything enabled so far while I test for 14 days, but based on what I'm seeing so far, I'll only need to have Europe, USA and Australia enabled for my main audience.

 

[speedway]

So with all the huge costs floating around just what are people actually paying? For example in the screenshot above, if you add them all up it reaches quote a large figure. If we are only serving small images, what are people seeing as an average monthly cost for a Xenforo forum?

I am considering using a 3rd party CDN to try and help my Aussie users seeing as my site is currently hosted in the US. However, if it is going to cost me 000's per year it just isn't worth it (plus cannot outlay that sort of dollars at the moment)

 

[MattW]

I've currently not paid anything, as I'm still on their free trial. However, based on the above, 1TB from the EU would be $49. My whole site only gets through 80GB of data per month, so that bandwidth, spread across various locations, would take a while to come to $49. The cost in the AP region is more, but my traffic there is small, so the costs in that region won't be that much.

I started the CDN with cdn77.com this morning, and so far today, it's cost me $0.01

 

[p4guru]

So with all the huge costs floating around just what are people actually paying? For example in the screenshot above, if you add them all up it reaches quote a large figure. If we are only serving small images, what are people seeing as an average monthly cost for a Xenforo forum?

I am considering using a 3rd party CDN to try and help my Aussie users seeing as my site is currently hosted in the US. However, if it is going to cost me 000's per year it just isn't worth it (plus cannot outlay that sort of dollars at the moment)

That's the whole point of CDN, end users have to decide if it's worth the money for CDN improvements. If you're a not for profit site, then probably not worth it using a CDN if you use ALOT of bandwidth without income to cover such costs.

I use maxcdn, cdn77, cloudflare, incapsula, rackspace cloud, amazon cloud quite a bit and each has their pros and cons. These days I use cdn77 more than maxcdn though.

If you use google analytics you can find a break down of visitors by geographic location to get an idea if visitor region matches up with CDN provider's POP/Edge locations

 

[speedway]

Thanks Matt

That sort of clears things up. I asked because I had a look at Cloudflare and did one of their whatifs. That same to stuff all per month. Then I had a look at cnd77 at their comparison between them and cloudflare and they were quoting numbers in the 000's.

 

[speedway]

.............. If you use google analytics you can find a break down of visitors by geographic location to get an idea if visitor region matches up with CDN provider's POP/Edge locations

80-90% of my traffic comes from Aus, the rest mainly from the US and rest of world. The problem with being on the butt of the world is everything costs 20 times what it does everywhere else. Hosting in the US (or Europe) is way more cost effective than trying to host locally. Like NZ we are close the end of a very long pipe to the rest of the world and that usually means time to load a site from, say, the US is more than US or European people locally. A CDN would help if they have a POP in Aus but like most things that costs more then the base price. Being a "hobby" site with minimal income per month (< 500) costs have to be really justified.

 

[MattW]

I'm just about to enable [Tinhte] Image Attachment Optimization & CDN Support to serve the full size attachments as well. Once it's done, have a browse of my site and see what you think. It's hosted in London, but I have all the edge locations enabled.

 

[speedway]

Will do Matt, wil go take a smoke break and then I'll check it out

 

[MattW]

All up and running

 

[speedway]

Went to your site and the first word uttered was a swear word! That is damn fast, a UK based site from Aus pretty much appeared as soon as I the link was clicked. Damn impressive!

 

[MattW]

I have quite a few members in Australia, so it's good that I can give them a better experience with the CDN enabled.

 

[speedway]

I have quite a few members in Australia, so it's good that I can give them a better experience with the CDN enabled.

Hmmmm, think I might use the free trial when I go live next month, just to see what happens......

 

[MattW]

That's all I'm doing at the minute. I did set up CloudFront over the weekend, but I hate the reporting side (you have to download a CSV file!)

 

[p4guru]

I have quite a few members in Australia, so it's good that I can give them a better experience with the CDN enabled.

yeah checked your site also uses anycast dns via dnsmadeeasy, that also speeds up site dns resolution time as well. I also use dnsmadeeasy which also have free 30 day trial

Hmmmm, think I might use the free trial when I go live next month, just to see what happens......

yeah make use of cdn77 trial and see how much it costs as static file bandwidth isn't same as your entire site's usual consumed bandwidth

 

[MattW]

yeah checked your site also uses anycast dns via dnsmadeeasy, that also speeds up site dns resolution time as well. I also use dnsmadeeasy which also have free 30 day trial

I've been using them for almost 4 years now. I love the fact I can switch DNS and it's propagated pretty much instantaneously.

 

[p4guru]

Yup Peregrine is awesome http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/technology/elite-resolution-platform/

Peregrine Instant DNS Updates

All DNS Changes Propagated Globally in an instant

The DNS Made Easy Peregrine Instant DNS Update system is a proprietary cascading multi-tier system through which all DNS updates for primary managed domains are passed. This system ensures that all DNS updates are reliably and instantly propagated to all DNS Made Easy DNS servers around the world.
The Peregrine Instant DNS Update system implements redundancy at both functional and geographic levels. These levels of redundancy guarantee that all DNS updates are reliably completed regardless of any possible transient system or network issues.
The DNS updates that feed into the Peregrine Instant DNS Update system are generated by user interactions with our DNS management web interface or REST based API, DNS Failover events, and Dynamic DNS API requests. All of these updates are instantly processed and propagated.
Most DNS services measure DNS update speeds in minutes or hours while DNS Made Easy customers enjoy Peregrine Instant DNS updates that can be measured in milliseconds. When we say instant DNS updates, we really do meaninstantDNS updates.

 

[andret]

Can you tell me more about your experience/analysis of cdn77.com? I'm assessing CDN options/alternatives and these guys look terrific - easy to setup, free shared ssl, and cheaper than Amazon CloudFront too. Thanks.

Could not get it working properly, for some reason all my visitors from Northern Europe just got 404 for all resources. Switched back to maxCDN, before going with amazon instead.