This past month Amazon sent me an early Christmas present, their very own content deliver network (CDN). Adding to their already robust line of “cloud” offerings, Amazon Cloudfront brings edge server routing to the mix. I have been using Amazon S3 for static content delivery since my most recent hello world. Cloudfront takes the highly scalable and redundant S3 and puts it closer to the end user, thus distributing throughput and reducing latency.

When it comes to web development, one of my driving forces is performance. I love seeking out and shaving milliseconds off page loads and network requests. One of the best ways to do this is to put the content as close to the source as possible. Content Delivery Networks do just that. If my viewers are in Asia, I don’t want my server in New York and vise versa. With a CDN data is cached at several geographically optimized locations as needed. When a request comes in, it is routed to the nearest location.

The quickest route to the Jungle

A good tool to analyze network routing, latency and a bunch of other stuff is pingplotter. They have a free version and pro version. The free version works great for my purposes. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Pings are a lightweight and predictable way to provide insight on latency and network conditions. Here is a comparison of my routes between Amazon Cloudfront and my standard web server.

As you can see, with Cloudfront I scream right to Amazons Newark, NJ server as apposed to going through McClean, VA, then ATL, and finally to my server in Dallas, TX.

How Cloudfront performs in the CDN storm

Pingplotter works great to determine *your* route and latency.

Just-ping.com provides a great way to test your host/cdn from many geographic locations at once.

Disclaimer: The below analysis was put together to illustrate a general concept. Accuracy and real world conditions will vary.

.	Geographic Location	Single Web Server	Amazon Cloudfront	Akamai	LimeLight

. Florida, U.S.A. 34.4 29.4 36.5 36.9 . Chicago, U.S.A. 34.5 6.6 19 1.3 . San Francisco, U.S.A. 43.6 2.2 3.6 2 . New York, U.S.A. 43.9 5 8.9 6.6 . Santa Clara, U.S.A. 47.1 3.9 2.8 6.9 . Vancouver, Canada 73 52 4.5 95.6 . Austin1, U.S.A. 102.4 38.1 5.2 76.3 . Austin, U.S.A. 102.7 38.1 5.3 76.4 . London, United Kingdom 108 13.2 1.8 1.6 . Amsterdam3, Netherlands 114.3 19.9 0.7 7.4 . Amsterdam2, Netherlands 115.8 20.6 1.5 8.1 . Amsterdam, Netherlands 118.6 0.9 0.5 0.7 . Lille, France 120.3 12.9 14.2 110.9 . Munchen, Germany 129.1 7.6 10.2 7.7 . Zurich, Switzerland 130.8 10.6 2.8 25.7 . Cologne, Germany 131.8 9 5 20.4 . Groningen, Netherlands 133 4.3 5.7 4.3 . Copenhagen, Denmark 137.9 15.6 4.1 25.3 . Antwerp, Belgium 139.7 5.5 4.2 4.4 . Stockholm, Sweden 142 32.7 5 23.6

. Madrid, Spain 142.4 45.2 2.5 25.1 . Paris, France 149.9 8.3 17.5 1.4 . Cagliari, Italy 165.5 30.1 29.5 30.4 . Auckland, New Zealand 173.7 159.8 1.1 161.4 . Krakow, Poland 174.1 31 8.8 43.6 . Haifa, Israel 177.9 78.1 0.5 64.5 . Porto Alegre, Brazil 179.1 149.9 30.2 169.9 . Nagano, Japan 185.8 4.8 13.1 4.7 . Sydney, Australia 204.8 159.2 3.3 166.2 . Hong Kong, China 206.8 2.3 2.2 65.6 . Melbourne, Australia 207.6 177.9 1.7 166.6 . Singapore, Singapore 238.7 137.1 13.3 3.5 . Shanghai, China 249.1 153.5 308.3 87 . Mumbai, India 280.3 259.1 1.6 263.5 . Johannesburg, South Africa 304.8 293.2 19.3 274.7 . Average (miliseconds) 144.1 57.65 16.98 59.15

Setting up and configuring Amazon Cloudfront

Setup was super easy with the latest S3 Organizer Firefox Add-on. You can also complete the setup with a Curl Script.

I just installed Windows Vista SP1 and so far have noticed quite a performance improvement. Nothing scientific here… just “click of the mouse” impressions. But everything seems more responsive and smooth. One tangible difference is network file transfers. While moving files, pre-SP1 to a network drive I would get consistently 25mb/sec. Now the same transfer is moving along at 32mb/sec. Again, nothing concrete, but that is a 28% improvement. This is just one of the notable changes in SP1.

I have always enjoyed vista. There are a lot of XP die hards out there, understandably not wanting to upgrade. I built a new computer when I migrated to vista, so I didn’t feel the impact as much. The benefits have been great; environment is pleasurable and reliability has been top notch. I picture the trade offs like this…. sure windows 98se was faster than XP on the same hardware . It’s only natural that XPsp2 will be faster than Vista on the same hardware. Every OS has it’s issue, even the prim and proper Apple got slammed for Leopard bugs. Change always brings new issues, but it also bring good.

I have to thank Microsoft for this service pack. Yes, I know… they technically fixed something that was “broken”. But, it isn’t often that you see this noticeable of a performance gain without upgrading hardware or bumping your vcore.

Installation was flawless, 32 minutes on my system. (i twitter-logged it)

I downloaded the stand-alone update via MSDN. Microsoft is expected to push the release date up to late February as apposed to mid March. If you wait for automatic updates to kick in, you won’t get it until mid April.

I am quite happy.

This one is really digging into the archives… Here are some pictures and specs of my first car (not my parent’s station wagon). I learned a lot and have many great memories from this car. I often joked, that I literally turned every bolt on this car. I didn’t have access to air tools either, all old fashion Craftsman hand tools. There where many long cold nights completing mods so that I would be ready to drive to work the next day. I wish I had better pictures, but here they are (Mostly scanned 35mm, if I find the original print/negatives, I will rescan).

Engine/Performance:

Port/Polished Cylinder Head (Gude)
Bored Throttle Body (Gude)
Port/Polished Intake Manifold (Gude)
Reprogrammed ECU (Gude)
Racing valve grind (Gude)
Top-End Cam (Gude)
MSD SCI-L Ignition
MSD Blaster SS Coil
MSD 8.5mm Plug Wires
B&M Short Shifter
Centerforce Clutch
AEM Cold Air Intake
AEM Cam Gear
DC Sports Ceramic Headers
DC Sports Catback Exhaust
Autometer Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge
Autometer Fuel Pressure Gauge (Full sweep electric 0-100psi)
Denso Iridium Spark Plugs

Suspension:

Eibach Sportline Springs
KYB Gas Struts
Ingall’s Camber Correction Kit
Axis Wheel Site Mesh 17×7
BF Goodrich Euro T/A Tires 205-40-17
Powerstop Cross drilled rotors
Axxis Carbon Metallic Pads

Appearance:

25% Smoke Tint
Clear lenses (Marker, Bumper, Tail, Side-marker)
Color match painted trim
DC Sports Red Billet Oil Cap

Stereo / Entertainment:

Alarm:

Python 3000HF
Proxy/Dual Stage Shock Sensors
1 Mile Pager System

Check out my very first web-log, My 1994 Honda Accord Journal

Also, check out my Flickr stream for more pictures.