CDN Woes. Recommendations?

[kontrabass]

Anyone use a CDN to serve static content? I've been using MaxCDN for several years. On vbulletin I never had any issues, but I created new pull zones for XenForo and since then I've had rashes of folks in work environments that get no static content (site's broken with no javascript etc because the CDN url is blocked). I added Australia to my account yesterday,and it broke the site for lots of users at home.

So I'm done with maxCDN. What do y'all use for CDN service? Is it even that important? 57% of our traffic is from the US, 7% Canada, 7% UK......

 

[Null]

If you don't really need to utilise a CDN service, it may be worthwhile serving your static content from a cookieless domain (static.example.com).

 

[digitalpoint]

We started with Cloudflare mostly for their ability to absorb DDoS attacks, but as it turns out, I've been *really* happy with their CDN stuff, which was a nice bonus. Not because we really needed to save bandwidth, but because of their ability to serve out static content from local cache in their various data centers around the world.

Ping times for our site is under 10ms for most parts of the world now (and while dynamic content still needs to make a backend trip to our physical servers, about 69% of all our HTTP requests end up being served out of Cloudflare's cache at the local data center)...



Ping time for our site from various locations:



As an example, if you run that same test from the same locations for your site, you get this:

 

[nodle]

I also use CloundFlare. Alot of people bash it but it has worked great for me and I also like their Railgun services. As long as you don't use Rocket loader it seems to work great!

 

[digitalpoint]

heh yeah, I didn't even try Rocket Loader... just seemed like a horrible idea to me.

 

[DJ XtAzY]

I guess i'll give CloudFlare another shot. What kind of settings do you guys have for Performance and Security?

 

[digitalpoint]

I think I just have the auto-minify stuff enabled on the performance settings.

 

[kontrabass]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and data Shawn. I'll try CloudFlare. I guess I do want to stick with a CDN. So much of our stuff is static and cachable - we were serving around 20GB/day of cached images/js/css with maxcdn. CloudFlare seems a bit more robust than CDN77.com and some of the others.

 

[rdn]

@digitalpoint But you're using the Enterprise plan?
I can only afford Free or Pro plan

 

[digitalpoint]

The only thing I use beyond the Pro plan is Railgun... And even that I'm not sure it's worth it.

 

[rdn]

Yes, Railgun looks amazing.

 

[TeflonDon]

I used to use cloudflare but switched over to Incapsula and have been happy with them.

 

[Newt]

I always wonder what's the real cost of this service since CDNs act as proxies and you allow them to store a full copy of your website on their server. I mean, all the data, including your members' details, nobody seems to be concerned about this (yet another) breach of privacy.

An awesome service at zero cost. But there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Talk about the size of the Trojan Horse.

 

[kontrabass]

I always wonder what's the real cost of this service since CDNs act as proxies and you allow them to store a full copy of your website on their server. I mean, all the data, including your members' details, nobody seems to be concerned about this (yet another) breach of privacy.

An awesome service at zero cost. But there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Talk about the size of the Trojan Horse.

Yeah, I'm going to hold off on CloudFlare right now. I'm sure their service is great but I'm just having a personal problem handing over that much control, changing DNS to route all users through their service is a bit much... Then I have to install some kind of addon so that xenforo will see the user's true IP instead of CloudFlare's IP's... Hmm.

 

[=MGN=RedEagle]

I always get endless redirect loops with Cloud Flare. Anyone else get these?

 

[dawg]

MaxCDN here for three years.

 

[kontrabass]

MaxCDN here for three years.

Have you ever had any users in corporate work environments that had trouble connecting to your MaxCDN zone? I've had about 10 different users report they can't access the site at work because they can't get the css/javascript/images.

 

[dawg]

Have you ever had any users in corporate work environments that had trouble connecting to your MaxCDN zone? I've had about 10 different users report they can't access the site at work because they can't get the css/javascript/images.

Never had a problem no. Can i ask you how you have your xenforo configured and also how you created your pull zone? Maybe i can help track down the problem. also, are you using a custom URL with a cName?

 

[Mick West]

Cloudflare. Works great. I use the Pro Plan so I can get SSL. It's such a hassle free way of getting CDN. Fast too.

I have all the Minify/Rocket stuff turned off though. I might give that another go.

 

[rdn]

Cloudflare. Works great. I use the Pro Plan so I can get SSL. It's such a hassle free way of getting CDN. Fast too.

I have all the Minify/Rocket stuff turned off though. I might give that another go.

Target users?
No downtime / cloudflare side downtime?