6 ms·

That's definitely a misunderstanding on the author's part. I think our own landing page (https://cloud.google.com/cdn/ https://cloud.google.com/cdn/) actually m

by boulos 11y ago

That's definitely a misunderstanding on the author's part. I think our own landing page (https://cloud.google.com/cdn/ https://cloud.google.com/cdn/) actually makes this clear: there are caches at the edge, but we (currently) deeply understand your origin (our compute engine VMs) and don't require any funny modification to your setup (just click a button) or look any different than your existing anycast IP for L7 Load Balancing. Disclaimer: I work on Compute Engine, not this (so I only sort of know what I'm talking about).

pbarnes_1 11y ago
It would be nice if you guys supported external origins, but I understand the reasons for not doing so. :D Edit: Any chance you could ask Cedexis to add GCDN to these reports: http://www.cedexis.com/reports/#?report=dsa&country=US&date=2016-04-17 http://www.cedexis.com/reports/#?report=dsa&country=US&date=...
nikolay 11y ago
"We deeply understand" - the worst thing I want to hear from a CDN. I want full control like Fastly allows me to use my own VCLs. "Deep understanding" is not something that I find as a plus as I read it as "we assume a lot of things (wrongly)". "Full control", "cache tags", "wildcard/tag purging", "sub-minute purges", etc. - these are the things I want from a CDN. I don't want another CloudFront!
- pbarnes_1 11y ago
  The "deep understanding" is from a networking POV... They're not trying to do those niche features (yet?). They're just trying to improve site perf for anyone using HTTP LB's on GCP already. You check a single box and your content is magically served from (or terminated on) a crazy number of POPs with zero configuration.
  - nikolay 11y ago
    What "deep understanding" when it works with VMs within GCE only?! This is a marketing description, not a technical one. The features I mentioned are not "niche", they are basic among CDNs and both Google and AWS seem to offer the worse and totally impractical CDNs. Honestly, if Google Cloud offers a CDN comparable with Fastly, I may consider a move, but for a CloudFront copycat (well, a copycat of Gen. 1) - thanks, but no thanks! In general, this once again proves that Google Cloud is not a viable alternative, it's only been playing a catch-up game, it doesn't deliver pleasant surprises, and that AWS is the way to go. Okay, true, HTTP/2 is the only missing feature, but I'm sure Amazon is gonna deliver this anytime.
    - obulpathi 11y ago
      Google Cloud is by far the best Cloud. Beats Aws and other cloud providers by miles margin. Also keeping in mind that a service that just entered beta is the fastest by itself is impressive. I would say, let's wait a while before commenting on features.
      - nikolay 11y ago
        I'd chose Azure before Google Cloud if I look for AWS alternative. I see more fruitful imagination in Microsoft than in Google! I am highly disappointed by Google - they've missed so many opportunities when it comes to Cloud Computing! They started the negative trend with the ridiculous and pricey AppEngine! And now they continue to lag severely behind Amazon! Also, if people mostly cared about "the fastest", you'd see only Akamai in the past, but, no, people wanted freedom! I was stuck with Akamai and their $600/hr professional services for too long to know this first-hand! And "the fastest" is when the service is not heavily utilized like the rest and it has very limited functionality. Plus, other vendors constantly improve as well. The fastest service today is not the fastest of the tomorrow, but the one that starts with a minuscule subset of the baseline and what the others is doomed!
        wstrange 11y ago
        Last time I priced out AWS, Azure and GCE, Azure was by far the most expensive - by a long shot - at least for our usage. I think Microsoft is looking to capture their F500 base that are highly Windows/AD-centric.
- lolobkk 11y ago
  Good point. Isn't the Fastly VCL configuration proprietary? What if you need to move to another CDN?
  - nikolay 11y ago
    Sorry, I had to clarify: VCL [0] stands for "Varnish Configuration Language", i.e. you can move to another CDN that supports VCL (although I'm not aware of any other) or move to your own Varnish servers. [0]: https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.1/reference/vcl.html https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.1/reference/vcl.html
forcer 11y ago
OP Here> The setup was as follows: VM instance in each of the 4 cloud regions around the world: Council Bluffs, IA (us-central1) Berkeley County, SC (us-east1) St. Ghislain, Belgium (europe-west1) Changhua County, Taiwan (asia-east1) So on any cache miss at one of the 50+ edge POPs, the cloud HTTP(S) load balancer will direct the request to the nearest cloud region. The resulting cache fill happens over Google's global network, which is fast. Once that cache fill happens, that edge cache can serve the content directly to clients, which is even faster.

by boulos 11y ago

pbarnes_1 11y ago

It would be nice if you guys supported external origins, but I understand the reasons for not doing so. :D Edit: Any chance you could ask Cedexis to add GCDN to these reports: http://www.cedexis.com/reports/#?report=dsa&country=US&date=2016-04-17 http://www.cedexis.com/reports/#?report=dsa&country=US&date=...

nikolay 11y ago

"We deeply understand" - the worst thing I want to hear from a CDN. I want full control like Fastly allows me to use my own VCLs. "Deep understanding" is not something that I find as a plus as I read it as "we assume a lot of things (wrongly)". "Full control", "cache tags", "wildcard/tag purging", "sub-minute purges", etc. - these are the things I want from a CDN. I don't want another CloudFront!

pbarnes_1 11y ago
The "deep understanding" is from a networking POV... They're not trying to do those niche features (yet?). They're just trying to improve site perf for anyone using HTTP LB's on GCP already. You check a single box and your content is magically served from (or terminated on) a crazy number of POPs with zero configuration.
- nikolay 11y ago
  What "deep understanding" when it works with VMs within GCE only?! This is a marketing description, not a technical one. The features I mentioned are not "niche", they are basic among CDNs and both Google and AWS seem to offer the worse and totally impractical CDNs. Honestly, if Google Cloud offers a CDN comparable with Fastly, I may consider a move, but for a CloudFront copycat (well, a copycat of Gen. 1) - thanks, but no thanks! In general, this once again proves that Google Cloud is not a viable alternative, it's only been playing a catch-up game, it doesn't deliver pleasant surprises, and that AWS is the way to go. Okay, true, HTTP/2 is the only missing feature, but I'm sure Amazon is gonna deliver this anytime.
  - obulpathi 11y ago
    Google Cloud is by far the best Cloud. Beats Aws and other cloud providers by miles margin. Also keeping in mind that a service that just entered beta is the fastest by itself is impressive. I would say, let's wait a while before commenting on features.
    - nikolay 11y ago
      I'd chose Azure before Google Cloud if I look for AWS alternative. I see more fruitful imagination in Microsoft than in Google! I am highly disappointed by Google - they've missed so many opportunities when it comes to Cloud Computing! They started the negative trend with the ridiculous and pricey AppEngine! And now they continue to lag severely behind Amazon! Also, if people mostly cared about "the fastest", you'd see only Akamai in the past, but, no, people wanted freedom! I was stuck with Akamai and their $600/hr professional services for too long to know this first-hand! And "the fastest" is when the service is not heavily utilized like the rest and it has very limited functionality. Plus, other vendors constantly improve as well. The fastest service today is not the fastest of the tomorrow, but the one that starts with a minuscule subset of the baseline and what the others is doomed!
      - wstrange 11y ago
        Last time I priced out AWS, Azure and GCE, Azure was by far the most expensive - by a long shot - at least for our usage. I think Microsoft is looking to capture their F500 base that are highly Windows/AD-centric.
lolobkk 11y ago
Good point. Isn't the Fastly VCL configuration proprietary? What if you need to move to another CDN?
- nikolay 11y ago
  Sorry, I had to clarify: VCL [0] stands for "Varnish Configuration Language", i.e. you can move to another CDN that supports VCL (although I'm not aware of any other) or move to your own Varnish servers. [0]: https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.1/reference/vcl.html https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/4.1/reference/vcl.html

forcer 11y ago

OP Here> The setup was as follows: VM instance in each of the 4 cloud regions around the world: Council Bluffs, IA (us-central1) Berkeley County, SC (us-east1) St. Ghislain, Belgium (europe-west1) Changhua County, Taiwan (asia-east1) So on any cache miss at one of the 50+ edge POPs, the cloud HTTP(S) load balancer will direct the request to the nearest cloud region. The resulting cache fill happens over Google's global network, which is fast. Once that cache fill happens, that edge cache can serve the content directly to clients, which is even faster.