What is the upcoming CDN service for faster load times on PF?

[Greg Bernhardt]

Load times are important these days and we want to give you your PF fix as fast as possible. Sometime within the next few days we'll be off loading any static files to a CDN. When active, the CDN will send you these static files instead of the PF server. There are 25 blazing fast servers on the CDN scattered across the globe. Odds are one of those is closer to you and is a lot faster than the PF server. Result is faster loading times.

I bring this up because over the next few days as we configure and connect to the CDN there could be some hiccups. There may be some loading errors, slow loading or missing files. I'm not sure. Just letting you know, so if something happens, you don't panic. This needs to be done to ensure your best experience here at PF! Thanks!

 

[turbo]

Thanks, Greg! That sounds like a great way to speed things up.

 

[dlgoff]

Before asking any questions, I thought I should at least learn what a CDN was. I hope Wikipedia's Content delivery network page helps.

 

[Drakkith]

What are "static files"?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

What are "static files"?

In our case, anything not served by the database.

 

[PAllen]

Which CDN service will be used? On some of my computers I tightly control cross site operations, so I will need to enable this correctly for PF to continue working.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Which CDN service will be used? On some of my computers I tightly control cross site operations, so I will need to enable this correctly for PF to continue working.

MaxCDN. We're about 50% done. If things look normal now you should be ok.

 

[Evo]

I used to sell this type of service back in the 90's. It allowed website owners willing to pay for the service to offer their customers faster site loading.

Thanks Greg!

 

[PAllen]

What I had to enable for cross site access from physicsforums was:

netdna-cdn.com

Now it works fine.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Should be 100% now. Please let me know if you find any broken images or other problems.

 

[dlgoff]

Should be 100% now.

OMG. The static content from the CDN is faster and the switch has solved my old "Waiting for i56.tinypic.com" problem as well; which turned out to be the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) being too big for tinypic. But the most important result I've seen is how screaming fast I'm getting my PF fix. Thanks Greg. :!)

Now, how can we help you pay for this?

 

[Evo]

And people are against website owners providing better service for their endusers (net neutrality).

 

[ehild]

It says "Waiting for tag. contextweb.com" forever again, without "refresh".

ehild

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

But the most important result I've seen is how screaming fast I'm getting my PF fix. Thanks Greg. :!)

Now, how can we help you pay for this?

Good to hear! You've already done your share being a gold member :)

It says "Waiting for tag. contextweb.com" forever again, without "refresh".

Yeah unfortunately that is the ad network again. The new CDN has no affect on that.

 

[dlgoff]

I'm getting red [Math Processing Error] messages for LaTeX. e.g. micromass's How to type mathematical equations here?.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm getting red [Math Processing Error] messages for LaTeX. e.g. micromass's How to type mathematical equations here?.

Looks ok to me. This is an unrelated issue either way.

 

[Borek]

Looks ok to me.

Same here.

 

[dlgoff]

Looks ok to me. This is an unrelated issue either way.

Okay thanks. It's some how related to firefox rendering I guess. Hope I can figure it out.

 

[strangerep]

Greg,

What is the difference between rackcdn.com and netdna-cdn.com, and their respective purposes?

I found recently that latex suddenly stopped working, then realized this was because I hadn't allowed scripts from rackcdn.com. Previously I had to allow mathjax, but that doesn't appear on the script list anymore. I guess you access it some other way now?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Greg,

What is the difference between rackcdn.com and netdna-cdn.com, and their respective purposes?

rackcdn is only for MathJax, which I have no control over. netdna-cdn is what PF uses now to serve most of it's static files.

We had to change the MathJax CDN to it's backup address because the usual CDN was hosted on GoDaddy which was attacked by hackers yesterday. I'll likely switch it back later this week.

 

[harrylin]

MaxCDN. We're about 50% done. If things look normal now you should be ok.

Ah that explains why I suddenly encountered problems with adding fonts/smileys! Anyway, thanks for the improvement.