3 ms·

20ms could mean the difference between a single digit rank in the App Store and a three digit rank. I see it every day - if my systems drop by 50ms average, I

20ms could mean the difference between a single digit rank in the App Store and a three digit rank. I see it every day - if my systems drop by 50ms average, I see a drop in rank. And 20ms? Try more like 300ms+ difference. Hell, sometimes a full second or more for some sites. Anyone who says total disaster recovery time is more important than total latency isn't running anything remotely to scale.

tzury 13y ago
Are you globally distributed? Are you using CloudFront? Those are cheap services which improve speed dramatically.
- nasalgoat 13y ago
  Yes and yes, we're using a CDN. Neither of those change that EC2 instances are slow and have unreliable performance, and the network is abstracted to the point where you can't effectively control packet flow.
  - tzury 13y ago
    EC2 will not become faster. However, at least, for web traffic, CPU and IO are not the only factors. Network is, in fact, a major player in the latency, and by being globally distributed, configuring Route53 appropriately, and integrating CloudFront CDN, a given web-app gets a boost that I doubt a faster computer can beat.
    - nasalgoat 13y ago
      We experimented with EC2 in the early stages to use as a possible load failover, and no matter what we did, we could never get better than 150ms ping times even between internal zones. The EC2 network also has mysterious packet filtering on it that prevented IPSec tunnels from working correctly. I've managed to leverage CDN and globally distributed servers for a fraction of the cost of Amazon services just fine, and I have the added benefit of 100% full control of all aspects of it, including the network. A good analogy is that EC2 is like an interpreted language versus compiled - you can get a lot done and it's easier to get started, but if you're really serious about performance, you need to program in C.

tzury 13y ago

Are you globally distributed? Are you using CloudFront? Those are cheap services which improve speed dramatically.

nasalgoat 13y ago
Yes and yes, we're using a CDN. Neither of those change that EC2 instances are slow and have unreliable performance, and the network is abstracted to the point where you can't effectively control packet flow.
- tzury 13y ago
  EC2 will not become faster. However, at least, for web traffic, CPU and IO are not the only factors. Network is, in fact, a major player in the latency, and by being globally distributed, configuring Route53 appropriately, and integrating CloudFront CDN, a given web-app gets a boost that I doubt a faster computer can beat.
  - nasalgoat 13y ago
    We experimented with EC2 in the early stages to use as a possible load failover, and no matter what we did, we could never get better than 150ms ping times even between internal zones. The EC2 network also has mysterious packet filtering on it that prevented IPSec tunnels from working correctly. I've managed to leverage CDN and globally distributed servers for a fraction of the cost of Amazon services just fine, and I have the added benefit of 100% full control of all aspects of it, including the network. A good analogy is that EC2 is like an interpreted language versus compiled - you can get a lot done and it's easier to get started, but if you're really serious about performance, you need to program in C.