Anyone using CDN's?

Seems this is the new craze and people are saying how much faster it makes the sites load and how much load it takes off their servers. If you have used CDN's, where do you recommend?

I see a site that is offering a 1tb/month for $40 (MaxCDN | Content Delivery Network | CDN) and I want to know if that's a good site/service or if there is better for roughly the same price. This one sounds great and I'm thinking about buying 2 packages, though not sure if I need 2. Could putting images, js, css, etc files on one be bad? Or should I get 2 and use one for images and the other for the js and css files?

Most services charge per GB. You liekly won't use that much (of course, traffic depending, but you can only put so much stuff on a cdn (static images, css, js, etc).

amazon s3 is popular as is softlayers CDN service if you host with them.

The whole point is that they are placed on multiple servers through out the world. HAving 2 won't be any better than 1 (assuming same locations).


But, if you have 99% US traffic, and your server is centrally located, it's likely a complete waste of money to invest in speedier load times for people who don't visit your site. I looked into it and decided it wasn't worth the money. My server runs fine as is and I have limited non-US/canada traffic to even consider it a viable expense.

I use MaxCDN. Admittedly I only have simpleCDN to compare with (absolutely shite btw - 3 months and still fighting for a refund), but I definitely recommend them. 1 TB will last you months (and any bought bandwidth stays on your account for a year), and by setting up a 'Pull Zone' it just mirrors your server, so css, attachments and avatars are always up-to-date.

You don't need 2 packages. You can setup unlimited sub-accounts, and on each account you can setup (up to) 7 CNAME's (subdomains).

From purchase to being up-and-running took me only 5 minutes, and the speed and server load is tons better

Understandable about the US traffic. My main is US with a decent amount from Canada and UK. I think the benefit outweighs the cost if you can get your skin images (mine is somewhat graphic intensive) and some css and js files on it, especially if the one I'm looking at is allowing 1tb of bandwidth for $40. But I think I'm going to try it just to see how much bandwidth all those do take up and see what the benefit really is and hopefully I'll keep everyone updated as to how it's running.

I've been using MaxCDN for over a year for about all of my WordPress installations, and I have to say, together with w3 total cache it's been great. You don't have to worry about their $39,95 offer btw. It's been that for months now.

Originally Posted by woostar

From purchase to being up-and-running took me only 5 minutes, and the speed and server load is tons better

As their vB integration isn't final yet I've been having some difficulties setting it up, and exceeded at least those 5 minutes, lol

May I ask how you've managed this?

Originally Posted by Cor van Noorloos

I've been using MaxCDN for over a year for about all of my WordPress installations, and I have to say, together with w3 total cache it's been great. You don't have to worry about their $39,95 offer btw. It's been that for months now.


As their vB integration isn't final yet I've been having some difficulties setting it up, and exceeded at least those 5 minutes, lol

May I ask how you've managed this?

I cheated

I used 'Replacement Variables' to replace the following:
(instead of cdn.domain, I span 5 different cname)

src="images/smilies/

src="http://cdn.domain.com/images/smilies/

src="images/icons/

src="http://cdn.domain.com/images/icons/

="clientscript/

="http://cdn.domain.com/clientscript/

Replace the following with nothing:

?v=385

And then, in your Template/Style Manager under 'Image Paths', just prefix all the fields with 'http://cdn.domain.com/'.
Also have a look though the rest of the template and prefix anything that needs doing. The .thead .tcat etc background usually start with something like url(images/gradients/gradient_thead.gif) repeat-x top left.


Finally I added a pluggin:
postbit_display_complete

Code:

 $post['avatarurl'] = "http://cdn.domain.com/" . $post['avatarurl'];

I believe that is it

This is on vB3.x btw, not vB4

How do you deal with your dynamic style sheet? Every time I change something, I need to reload my vbulletin_css file (the name changes) to my CDN.

Any advice?

Ideally, you should NOT use a cdn until you are 100% set up, and then after if you do change something, you need to flush the cache on it.

It seems MaxCDN's vBulletin implementation guide is a bit more up to date than it was: Implementation › vBulletin › NetDNA Support Wiki

vBSEO 3.6 will have CDN integration. You'll be easily move your content including attachments to CDN with 3.6.0. It is currently live on vBSEO.com

I use an open source CDN hosting service right now on my big webmaster forum. I am happy with it. It's name is cloudflare i have shared a article about it here. Spam Free Internet by Cloudflare system - Blogs - vBulletin SEO Forums It service my basic reouces css, js and images via 5 datacenter spread the world.

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

vBSEO 3.6 will have CDN integration. You'll be easily move your content including attachments to CDN with 3.6.0. It is currently live on vBSEO.com

Mert,

How do you keep the cdn service updated with new files and css changes? If I moved avatars to it, how do newly uploaded avatars get there? If I change a stylevar, how does the CSS get updated?

maxcdn uses a mirror and a cache timeout. You can set it however high or low you want. There's also a flush cache option in the CP.

If you set up your pull httpd.conf correctly, you can enable cache times for different areas easily.
example in step 3 here:
HowTo: Configure Wordpress To Use A Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Note: you should avoid ETags (they are slow)

Will this solution be able to handle attachments?