Add native support to off-load images to CDN [Gantry]
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- MindTooth
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 563
- Thanks: 0
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Hello,
Recently I have been reading about CDN and collected some info on the topic; Joomla! and CDN. There are a couple of plugins available[1,2,3] as well as many CDN providers[4].
After experiencing a slow Joomla! site and after some page tests[5]. Which in turn revealed that the major slowdown were when serving images. Since there has been an evolution, which has brought with it more complex imagery, and higher number of other includes. The overall speed of any site is expected to suffer the additional strain.
Though, you could debate that some measures have been put in place(gzip, sprites, etc.). I won't be denying that changes can also be made elsewhere. Its just, that there will always be images to download. And the majority of people is scattered around the world. Making it more attractive to include a higher redundancy.
After some forth and back, I started to think, why can't the template framework support a native way of push the template's images to a CDN, and change the links on the fly. This surely should be possible. Yes, it would probably require some work. And, yes, there are different APIs to support (could be solved by making each CDN a plugin). Its just that, I seem to think, that the means would justify the end. Being able to just install a Gantry template, change some settings to your likings, add your CDN address, hit "Save". And then after some minutes, see the site begins to load faster and faster. What a sensational feeling that would be. Lets not talk about the benefits this would provide.
What do others think of it? Can it be achieved, is there anything to gain, or not. Please share your thoughts..
[1] j.mp/hsW8cI (corePHP)
[2] j.mp/dOCOHZ (JoomlaWorks)
[3] j.mp/eNwUUy (NoNumber!)
[4] j.mp/gr8K1e (Wikipedia)
[5] j.mp/gt6oMX (Pingdom Tools)
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- prim
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17290
- Thanks: 217
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While CDN might be useful for some sites it is utterly useless for at least 99% of the users. If you look closely at the status-bar of the browser you will often see it waiting for:
images.domain.com
video.domain.com
media.domain.com
cache.domain.com
I think CNN uses something like i.cdn.turner.com and YouTube has something.lscache4.youtube.com or something.ytimg.com
Anyway, it slows down the loading time for the average user. If i see the lscache crap on YouTube i will navigate away instantly because it will take hours to load if it ever loads completely. The worst lscache comes from Australia btw.
I think it's better to spend some money on a decent webhost instead of using CDN unless you have a ton of money and you are a large company...
Btw, it seems like Microsoft has some nice CDN solution for their website(s). - Please reply with a direct link to the issue & create a new thread for each new issue.
A template is only as good as the content that goes into it
- DanG
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- John Midgett
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 73
- Thanks: 0
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I think you are confusing a CDN with an alternate host. A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is an array of servers that will cache content in such a way that each user will get the content from the closest server rather than from the origin, making pages load MUCH FASTER, not slower. It is completely transparent to the user and looking in the address bar will show no indication whatsoever of a CDN being used.
It also reduces the load on the origin server enabling more concurrent users to interact with the site.
The best CDN on the planet is Akamai. Amazon S3 is an affordable alternative (we just got our bill for 35 cents). - Do you Nrf2? You'd better start soon!
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