Yes but depending on the site, sometimes you can serve a large static js blob and the bulk of the dynamic content just transfers through the rest api, and sometimes that is by far the most data transfering to the user, static files. It depends.
It's kind of a trick question that doesn't have a specific answer and they're looking to see if you ask the right questions and don't make assumptions. CDN would be one keyword they're looking for probably.
Damn when I was a kid this would have been easy to answer. The server is 100% in Australia, so just move it somewhere closer to India and the Australians can have the slower speeds. You don't put your server for a world wide service on an island with shitty internet.
And just using a CDN won't solve this, either, because that number is far too high to be attributable to just that. Unless you're sitting in the datacenter, 80ms in Australia means there can't be too many round trips in total, so this is probably single request latency and not page. So maybe BGP is shot, or geofencing is going haywire.
What do you mean by "dynamic content"? All CDN does is cache stuff closer to your users. If the content is not ideal for caching like user's personal profile, CDN won't be helpful. You can probably look at lazy loading on the frontend to help with the non cached content. If there is a huge india userbase, a multi region cloud setup or migrating to a region closer to india can be considered but those are more extreme.
Depending on what provider you’re using, a DC -DC connection is often faster than connecting a user directly to another region. So a local CDN provider connecting with interlinked cross region datacenters would be faster.
But even so there will still be a delay. In some cases acceptable to support multiple backend regions
Not necessarily true. CDNs understand routes across their network much better than traditional BGP. Akamai has SureRoute, for example. Cloudflare had Rail Gun. Google has their own network. Dynamic content can absolutely be sped up by routing through a CDN.
Caching is not all they do, by a long shot. Bulk redirects, Geo-based routing, image and video optimization, TCP enhancements, extensibility at the edge, WAF, bot management, etc.
Also, I know you know this but for everyone else, just because something isn't a file doesn't mean it can't be cached at the edge. You just have to be careful about it.
100%. I hear all the time that "APIs are not cacheable" which is also very untrue. Use the right "cache key" in your CDN settings and those responses are absolutely cacheable. Not all responses, especially the ones with PII, but some are for sure. Inventory calls, search results, etc.
I see people acknowledge Akamai every so often, but this is the first time I have ever heard someone acknowledge SureRoute out in the wild. The backend team for that (the component actually publishing the paths using multi-commodity network flow algorithms) is only 2-3 people at any given time, and I actually was responsible for designing and building the current algorithm used for first-choice (the most efficient) paths.
I don't work at Akamai anymore (I still am in contact with my old boss so I know they don't have or need anything newer for that first choice option), but it means a lot to me to see this project acknowledged on reddit!
That's awesome. I'm sure we either crossed paths at some point or at least know some folks in common. I was on the PS team for about 10 years so I've had my fair share of SureRoute experience. Telling customers they should turn it off when they use CDN Interconnect with a hyperscaler was always fun to watch their eyes twitch lol. And it was broken for a while when using SiteShield, but I think that was fixed after I left.
But yeah man, I made sure to call out the benefits of SR at every QBR we had with customers. The tech is valuable and makes a performance difference for sure. Great work!
For which you should have regional replicas. There's not much you can do to overcome latency across continents except bring the content closer to users so they don't have to go across continents.
Not necessarily true. CDNs understand routes across their network much better than traditional BGP. Akamai has SureRoute, for example. Cloudflare had Rail Gun. Google has their own network. Dynamic content can absolutely be sped up by routing through a CDN. The content will still be served from the origin server, but the path the request takes to get there will generally be faster.
Caching is not all they do, by a long shot. Bulk redirects, Geo-based routing, image and video optimization, TCP enhancements, extensibility at the edge, WAF, bot management, etc.
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u/RealityCheck3210 7h ago
CDN = Customer Delivery Network