Many of you are probably aware of the conflict between Level3 and Comcast over the past few days.  The debate revolves around the extent to which Comcast can provide peering for the data that will now flow across both of their networks as a result of Level3’s Netflix business win.  This dilemma points to the inherent problems in the operation of the Web today, and especially towards the shortcomings of backbone providers and their peering partners.  We have in fact touched upon the basis of this dispute already in our previous Direct Peering blog post.

A good aggregation of information on this issue can be found in this Datacenter Knowledge article.

We won’t choose sides here, but a few things are certain…

1) The current system does not seem to be working.  As Daniel Gooding, Managing Director of DH Capital and guest blogger at GigaOm says, “No one here did anything wrong; these disputes aren’t uncommon.”  Clearly there must be a better way.

2) Netflix unfortunately hangs in the balance while Level3 and Comcast settle their squabble.  Netflix and many other companies today hold efficient delivery of their services at the core of their business.  If Level3 and Comcast sever ties and no longer share bandwidth, it is devastating for Netflix.

3) It is most critical for content providers to choose neutral parties for delivery of content. This is especially true for parties that are not also Tier-1 providers.  These companies have much different business objectives than a CDN/Content Accelerator whose sole objective is efficient delivery of the content.  Performance should always be the main objective, not saving money delivering content.

4) In this example with Level3, they are first and foremost a Tier-1 provider.  They also happen to offer CDN services, but the fact that they are a Tier-1 affects their ability to deliver. Because of their Tier-1 status, they only have settlement-free peering relationships with other providers.  They do not buy transit from anyone.  In the case of Comcast, it’s not like they’re seeing any new traffic from Netflix, it’s just that the traffic is now coming from Level3 instead of other providers when it was previously with Akamai.  So, Comcast is now being asked to spend money putting in a lot more connections to Level3.  The bigger issue is probably that Comcast will now have many underutilized transit connections to other providers, which is costly, and there is no way for Level3 to send the Netflix CDN traffic to them any other way.

This crisis illustrates one of the problems that has been central in the creation of Cloud Acceleration.  The fact is that these disputes do happen all the time, and they point to the importance of owning a private network with connections to every provider out there.  If an Acceleration solution were in place for Netflix, any relationship severance between providers wouldn’t affect them whatsoever!

The outcome of this will be very interesting, and one must ask…  is this conflict between Level3 and Comcast the beginning of a “water rights” type of dispute between Internet providers?  Will we see more legal wranglings over who controls what portion of the Internet streams?  How will this affect not only service providers, but end users as well?

In the words of Stacy Higgenbotham of GigaOm, “What began as a commercial dispute may end up fundamentally changing how the web works and who pays for it.”

Chris Gragtmans

DNS is the critical first link in a Website’s ability to load quickly for its users.  CDN, Cloud Acceleration, and Dynamic Site Acceleration solutions don’t mean much if your DNS system isn’t giving you great performance and the level of granulized control you need.  High performance and granular control have always been focal points for our business here, and the existing demand for such quality services points to the importance of utilizing a full-service cloud enabling vendor.

Amazon has recently announced the existence of the new Route 53 DNS service.  As a developer at Cloud Leverage, I always look at the functionality of services such as these, and how they will generate value for you… the Web-enabled enterprises and SMBs of the world.

What you need to know about AWS’s Route 53…

The Amazon offering is interesting, and what it offers brings up some very important considerations about what Web-enabled businesses are trying to achieve with DNS solutions today.

The first of these considerations is the need for granular control and full management.  The Amazon Route 53 solution is simply the bare-bones API, which is what we would expect from AWS, and there is no mention of a user interface included or available – so you, or your developers, need to be ready to roll your own DNS graphical user interface.  In addition, integration with other Amazon cloud services is not native at the user-account level, so you will need to call any other Amazon Web Services you use and get your info there, then call Route 53 change requests to point records to say, your “bucket”.  The list of supported records numbers 10…

A Format

AAAA Format

CNAME Format

MX Format

NS Format

PTR Format

SOA Format

SPF Format

SRV Format

TXT Format

Ten record types will cover the basics, but who wants to tout their DNS power as “um, we can cover the basics”? (I will take the opportunity to note here that our solution covers 26 DNS record types for total IPv4/IPv6 control.)

Another huge consideration is automatic zone file uploading and record creation.  Amazon is saying that you need to get your zone files, and you are then responsible for converting them to the Amazon Route 53 xml data to send the request. Amazon does have a pearl script that you can download that you can use to convert the zone files to their xml. But don’t you want your DNS provider’s system to handle all that for you? Me too – that’s why our DNS system processes zone files automatically. Using Amazon’s DNS would become a bit of a pain if you had 2000 zones to migrate. You or your developer would have to parse each one to xml, then send a separate request, and then get a “pending” status and an API experience that amounts to a “here’s your change receipt, check back later if you don’t get an answer now”. Why would I do all of that when with our DNS I can zip thousands of zone files up and just upload the zip file and let the DNS system do the parsing? Also it will tell me what, if anything is wrong with the DNS records I upload – even remind me to change the authoritative name servers if I forget. So, suffice it to say the Amazon DNS offering is asking you to do the development yourself to get these things done.

It is a good thing that Amazon is jumping into the DNS space and lending credibility to the importance of the service. I mean we all know there are still plenty of folks out there that just aren’t aware of the power of the really good DNS solutions that are available now-days, so having Amazon step into the game will probably get some people who weren’t previously thinking about what they really need from DNS service to succeed going forward.  The question for businesses must now become… go with a minimalist approach such as that offered by Route 53, or take advantage of a more complete and automated DNS API and UI with the features and functionality that enterprises today need.

To each their own, but we prefer to focus on delivering the latter.

Zach Farnham

In creating Cloud Leverage, one of our biggest motivations is fixing the inherent problems of the Internet.  As applications, video, voice-over IP, and other dynamic protocols become more and more prevalent, the traditional Internet is being stretched to its limits.  In a study done by Cisco, and referenced on Dan Rayburn’s blog, Internet traffic is slated to grow 5x by 2013, and video will constitute 90% of overall traffic.

These are crazy statistics, and point back to a very core problem in content delivery… an antiquated architecture.  This is a drawing that we point back to quite often when speaking with prospective clients:

It represents the original design for the Internet, scribbled on a napkin.  This dates back to 1969, and the four nodes pictured are the University of California in Santa Barbara, Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, and the University of Utah.  The test data  transmitted between these machines was meaningless, but this breakthrough led to the formation of the Internet.

Here is a short history of the ensuing chain of events:

September 2, 1969: First time two computers communicated with each other (UCLA & SRI).

October  29, 1969:   Message sent from computer to computer in different locations.

1971:                             The first email was sent.

January 1, 1983:      ARPANET adopted the standard TCP/IP protocol.

March 1989:              Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

April 22, 1993:         Mosaic became the first web browser.

And the rest is history.

The amazing thing is, however, that the Internet today is still built on those same foundations.  It was designed as an experimental research network, and has been rigged in iterations to be what it is today.  TCP and UDP are still the core protocols of the Internet and were designed to ensure reliable communication first, and speed of delivery second.  Today, more than ever, speed matters just as much as reliability.  People all over the world want to use the Internet for more than what it was designed for… they watch TV on the Internet, they use it to talk on the telephone and just like the adoption of IPv6 to ultimately replace IPV4 has been slow, changing how almost every device communicates across the Internet to a more superior set of protocols is probably impossible. These are the problems that inspired us to start this company, and these are the problems that we directly solve through Cloud Acceleration!

Jonathan Hoppe

Greetings All!

Well, Cloud Leverage has returned home from a successful trip last week to the annual Internet Summit in Raleigh, NC.  Stuart Dodson, Morrie Mau, and myself, Sir Chris Gragtmans, made the trip out early Wednesday morning, and were able to touch base with a bunch of really intelligent, fun, and interesting folks.  We were selected as one of twelve demo showcase start-ups to attend the event.

There was certainly some innovative energy flowing around this event.

Stuart and Morrie doing their best to catch up with all visitors.

Stuart showing off one of our giveaways… two lucky people walked away with an Android Archos 7 tablet!

This is what we do.

Another opportunity that we really enjoyed was brushing shoulders with the twelve other demo showcase companies. These people are doing some really incredible things, and we were happy to be included in such good company. A few of my favorites were gTrot, mailVue, Milo, AdZerk and GETInteractive.

To wrap the show up, Stuart, our Director of Marketing, gave a presentation on some of the problems that the Internet presents to Web-enabled companies today, and how Cloud Leverage solves them. This is very relevant information to almost any business out there today, so check it out and enjoy.

See you at the next conference!

Chris Gragtmans

Happy Monday All!

I hope that the Halloween weekend was fantastic for all of you; I know it was for me.  So we have touched in the past on the unease that surrounds moving data storage, Website delivery, firewall, and other critical business functions to the cloud.  The word “cloud” certainly seems to carry a certain stigma along with it.

In considering how you will structure the IT operations in your own business, and whether the security issue is insurmountable, I would encourage you to look towards our own government.  The Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, has been making some waves with his embracing of cloud technologies.  As always, make the decision that is most logical for your business, but I wanted to point you towards several articles showing how our government has been making strides towards the cloud.

Cloud Computing in the Public Sector

Feds to Access Email From Cloud

Vivek Kundra Wants a Web 2.0 Government

Vivek Kundra’s Cloud Computing Call to Arms

Vivek Kundra Steps Up to Cloud Computing’s Next Challenge

So… my question to you is:

If cloud technologies are secure enough for the government, are they secure enough for your organization?

We would love to hear from you via comments or through an @CloudLeverage message on Twitter!

Chris Gragtmans

Hello, and welcome back to our series of posts on the direct benefits that companies can reap from improved Website performance.  As we stated in the first post of the series, a faster Website directly benefits all three of the basic business initiatives… increase revenue, reduce cost, and provide better service.  In today’s post, we will address the ways in which your faster Website will reduce your monthly and annual costs.

1) Double Dip – Investments in content delivery also give you better SEO!

We touched upon this in our revenue gain post, but it does apply to both sides of the story.  Many businesses are pouring huge resources into ranking higher on Google for their target keywords, and those mysterious algorithms can literally make or break an organization’s success.  SEO is historically a very complicated, expensive process that needs to be outsourced, but the good news is that Google has now changed its algorithms to include Website load time.  This means that companies can automatically achieve higher rankings through faster Website load times.  Why would you not want your website to perform?  If SEO was the only concern here, it would STILL be worth the investment in acceleration!

2) Lowered Developer Costs

Traditionally, there have been a number of things that can be tweaked in the Website’s code to achieve a faster page load time.  These include minimizing HTTP requests, putting stylesheets at the top, avoiding CSS expressions, reducing DNS lookups, reducing cookie size, and myriad others.  In spite of the fact that all of these changes can shorten page load, they are still “band-aid” solutions, and don’t actually fix the inherent problems of the Internet.  Marketing has changed tremendously over the past few years, and it is now necessary to “load up” Websites with the rich, interactive, and subsequently large applications that users are becoming so accustomed to.  Developers are struggling to reconcile speed and content.  When cloud acceleration, also known as dynamic acceleration, is used, you will need less developer manpower to tweak the code for optimal Website performance.  Put whatever applications that you want on your site, and we will handle the rest!

3) Decreased Infrastructure Management

Most people rely on edge caching to get their content to users as quickly as possible.  One of the problems with this lies in the inability to cache dynamic content, which we touched on in a prior post, but there is a whole other problem that needs to be addressed here as well…  infrastructure management.  To put it simply, those thousands of copies of your data around the world need to be updated.  They all have different expiration times, and the potential for error in their updating is huge.  Your customers need to see the most up-to-date version of your site.  The problem is that when caches get “stuck,” it’s not only your customers that miss out… your IT department needs to work to keep things running smoothly.  This adds up to a large internal cost when all is said and done, and delivering from the source starts to make a whole lot more sense

When considering the mitigation of these costs AND the additional revenues generated, it is obvious that Website and application performance should be top of mind.  Stick with us, and we will wrap the series up and show you how it can also improve customer service!

Chris Gragtmans

The cloud storage industry has gone through a veritable roller coaster ride during the first few years of its existence.  The advantages are clearly there, but a number of factors have caused unease amongst SMB and Enterprise decision makers alike.  The cloud security concern has been, and always should be, paramount.  Trusting your information to a third party should never be taken lightly, and making a bad decision there can have disastrous effects.  The good news is that many of the leaders in the storage space can provide encryption, aggressive SLAs, and physical data center security to make them legitimately trustworthy.

The next concern has always been a lack of standards for the APIs used to access cloud storage.  The lack of a standard API means that businesses take a risk by committing to a single storage vendor… their data cannot be transferred to another vendor without great difficulty.  This is one form of lock-in, but this problem has also been mitigated with most of the major players moving to a REST-based API.  There is however yet another new form of vendor lock-in that businesses contemplating moving to the cloud need to consider…

Latency.

Having your data “in the cloud” can do incredible things for remote worker collaboration, backup, and file sharing, but it is also subject to the major drawback of the Internet… latency.  This means that a volume of data that would usually take 30 seconds to upload/download via a SAN may take 10x that, or worse, depending on where the data is stored.

This is not a horrible problem with small transfers, but adds a whole new element of lock-in to an organization that may be trying to store terabytes or petabytes of data in the cloud.  This can take days to weeks to transfer via the Internet.  Consistent APIs or not, there is a level of commitment that businesses may not have taken into consideration when this is the case!  This reality became painfully evident in the shutdown of the EMC Atmos cloud storage service a few months ago.  Users were given a short period of time to completely remove all of their data, or it would be deleted.

This is unsettling from several standpoints, but definitely points to the fact that cloud performance itself, and the time that it takes to get data to and from the cloud, is definitely a weakness.  Businesses need to undertake the most logical solutions from a cost perspective, a scalability perspective, and a performance/time investment perspective.  There are several important things that need to be taken into account with these needs in mind:

1) Where are the storage facilities?

A storage vendor with a globally-distributed data center footprint is always best.  The ability to choose where your data is stored should be paramount from a latency, security, and regulatory standpoint.

2) Is it possible to ship a hard drive?

Depending on volume, many vendors are willing to receive a shipped hard drive with the initial bulk of data.  This allows the user to have their data uploaded at SAN performance, and be readily accessible immediately.

3) Does the vendor have content acceleration capabilities?

Some storage vendors have content delivery systems in place, and boast advanced solutions for bypassing the public Internet.  One great solution is to install an appliance in the user data center to create a high-performance link between the local site and the cloud data center or network.  This makes it feel like cloud storage is local.

As always, ask questions, and nail down up-front the prices for these additional services.  Latency has been a speed-bump in the development of cloud technologies, but it is by no means an insurmountable obstacle.  There is enough industry pressure to drive development of more convenient systems of inter-vendor data transfer.

Jonathan Hoppe

We touched on some quick tips for accelerating Ecommerce Website performance in a previous blog post, but we still receive a lot of questions about how a faster website load time directly BENEFITS an organization.  If you have struggled with that question in the past, you are in the right place.

In addressing this issue, it’s important to return to the three basic business initiatives… increase profit/revenue, reduce cost, and provide better service.  The beautiful thing about website load time is that it can actually benefit all three.  Many people do not understand just what benefits improved online performance can render.  The first huge benefit of a faster Website/application is:

Increase Revenue through the following…

1) Marketing Effectiveness Increases

As a rule, consumers today have very short attention spans.  They expect websites to respond in the blink of an eye, and are often drawn to the more interactive aspects of the websites that they visit.  Whereas online marketing in days past relied on invasive pop-ups and other ads, contemporary marketing depends on a constant interaction between the company and the end user.  When this connection is reliable and fast, users feel as though they are in control of their experience, and this reflects well on brand image.

“Companies need to create dynamic, relevant web content” -Gartner

Once the performance is a given, businesses can be free to load their marketing materials with all of the rich and interactive applications that drive in the maximum amount of leads possible.  Website performance absolutely impacts marketing effectiveness.

2) Gain Higher Search Rankings

This has been a hotly discussed item this year.  This spring, Google took the step of factoring Website speed into their algorithm.  This in itself should make us pay close attention to our site load times.  Even industry leaders must now place a priority on their content delivery in order to remain where they want to be… at the top of search results.

Many businesses have huge budgets for SEO, and those will now have to include reliable and effective content delivery.  All of the other work could be for naught if the site doesn’t perform.

3) Sales/Conversion Rates Increase

This is where the rubber really meets the road. If your business has a certain percentage of unique visitors converting to buyers, then you are naturally going to want to increase that percentage as well as work to increase the total visitors to the site.  There are a number of website statistics that lead us to believe that visitors will stay longer on a site that performs well.  Here are a few:

47% of users expect site and page load times to be 2 seconds or less -royal.pingdom.com

10% of visitors leave a site for each extra second of load time -Peer 1 Hosting

Based on these statistics, a page load decrease of a few seconds drastically increases visitor retention, and represents a significant amount of revenue gained.  This dollar gain grows exponentially the greater the load time improvement.  Here is a quick example using sample numbers:

A Website improves from a 5 second to a 3 second load time.

Average Monthly Revenue     $190,000

Average Monthly Visitors       400,000

________________________________

Rev/Visitor                                   $0.48

1 second = 10% visitor increase, so  2 seconds improvement= 20% increase

400,000 x 20%  =  80,000    x $o.48 = $38,400!!

That is a very, very impressive monthly revenue gain, especially for such a small organization.  Think about the possibilities for your own business, and feel free to plug your numbers into this equation.  Users are only getting more and more demanding, so the potential revenue increase derived from performance improvement will only increase.

Check back in with us periodically; we will circle back to the cost reduction and service aspects of a faster Website or application.

Jonathan Hoppe

Hello All!

In this post, I’d like to bring a more personal perspective to our company…

Meet Morrie Mau and Nathan Pampel.

Morrie and Nathan are two newish faces to Cloud Leverage; Morrie is a Senior Account Executive on our Sales Team, and Nathan is a Global Account Manager.  I sat down with the two of them recently for a quick interview on company direction, customer needs, and a bit of background on what brought them here.  Hope you enjoy!

How long have you been with Cloud Leverage?

MM: 5 months

NP: 2 months

Where are each of you from?

MM: I grew up in Cali, and have lived in Asheville for five years.

NP: I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, then lived for a short stint in Philadelphia, and finally moved to Asheville, where I have lived for twenty one years now.

What brought you to this area?

MM: I searched for six years for the perfect place to relocate.   Asheville was an obvious choice for me once I spent some time here.  It has everything… the climate, the culture, the food, and incredible natural beauty.

NP: (laughs) Well, I actually came down here to finish my undergrad and for a girl.  That relationship didn’t end up working out, but I did meet my wife shortly thereafter, and we’ve been happily married for 14 years.  Things happen for a reason without a doubt.  I also definitely fell in love with the mountains as soon as I came here.

What are your impressions of the CL culture thus far?

NP: I’m very impressed.  With my background in tech, I’m really excited about the technology that we have here.  Cloud Storage is an incredible utility for any company looking to collaborate and maximize efficiencies with remote workers.  Acceleration is also an amazing service, hands down.

MM: What I really enjoy about our atmosphere is that we are still very light on our feet.  Management here is open to create a culture that reflects our own passions and personalities, and therefore becomes whatever we make it.  We have a small sales team with different backgrounds, but all very mature and experienced.  We form a strong cohesive unit.  I also really enjoy helping businesspeople with the pressing problems of online presence.  One of the most exciting things for me is bringing solutions to high-level execs of companies that they didn’t even know existed.

Nathan, what should clients do to get the most from our customer support department?

NP: I think that the most important thing is to be specific with us about your business needs.  People often come in the door with pre-conceived notions about what solutions they need.  Given your individual needs and usage, we can often tailor a custom solution for you.  That is the beauty of being fresh and nimble!

In addition, as always, feel free to call or email us anytime to take advantage of our 24×7 USA-based support center.

Morrie, what are some exciting projects that you see coming in the next few months?

MM: I am very excited about the soon-to-be-released, extremely enhanced customer management portal.  We are dealing with very educated, tech-savvy people and companies, and the more control that we can give them, the better.  This portal will be an interface to manage storage, security, and delivery of corporate data assets.

Since our core focus is content delivery, what unfulfilled needs and challenges are you seeing from current and prospective customers?

MM: One thing that we are running into frequently is the challenge of delivering dynamic content.  These interactive protocols are exploding in popularity on the Internet, and many delivery solutions do not deal well with dynamic content performance.  For us, simplicity is key, and that is why we deliver from the source to the end user.  With many companies deploying dynamic applications these days, it’s been fun to educate these people on what kind of performance they can have at their fingertips.

Any other advice you can offer companies considering making the move to the cloud?

NP: I would advise companies to practice due diligence in selecting a provider for cloud services.  Security should certainly be a concern, but the good news is that the technology has matured enough to make the leaders very trustworthy.

MM: My best advice is to approach it with an open-minded standpoint.  There have been a lot of stereotypes about the cloud, but looking at it with the “how can this apply to my business” attitude usually delivers the best results.  The reality is that with what we’re seeing, using this model usually equals to better, faster, and cheaper.

In ending, what makes the two of you passionate outside of the office?

NP: I love spending time with my family outdoors.  Going to the beach, hiking, and playing golf all make me happy.  I also have always loved tinkering with computers and electronics in my free time.

MM: I grew up by the ocean, so I’ve always loved surfing.  I have six children, and four of them are in college, so I spend a lot of time on the phone or playing ping pong with them.  I am also a competitive racquetball player and love golf.  Name your sport, and I’m in!

Thanks gentlemen, and to anyone else who may be interested, Cloud Leverage is always hiring!

Chris Gragtmans

Well, the kids are back in school; the fall 2010 semester is underway.  Education seems to be in quite a state of flux as it balances traditional practices with the new technologies that we have available to us today, in the interactive age.  That is the key word right there… Interactive.

Students are now choosing to watch live streams of lectures rather than attending them in person.  They are leveraging online course material to steepen their learning curves and are interacting more readily with professors in the non-judgemental atmosphere that the Web offers.  Check out this ReadWriteWeb article for a deeper look into how exactly students are acting differently in their approach to education.

The fascinating thing to me is the fact that the Web can benefit both ends of the spectrum.  The gifted individuals can quickly scan over the basics, progressing forward at whatever pace they desire, while those who are struggling can make sure that they understand a concept before moving on.  It is now truly possible to individually tailor education to each person.

Another interesting aspect of the Web’s influence on education is showcased in how educational institutions are communicating with students and prospective students.  In a very contemporary marketing campaign, the University of Kentucky placed giant wooden pointers all over campus to remind students to check in on Facebook.  When students do this, their entire friend network receives a promotion for the school from someone that they trust.  The power of this is incredible, and UK has seen drastically increased applications since starting the program.

As with everything, however, there are two sides to the story.  Do you think that the E-Learning flexibility that students are allowed is a good thing or a bad thing?  Is accountability lowered as a result?  Are students who are staying in their pajamas all day and not dialoguing face-to-face with their peers really getting the same quality of education?

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Chris Gragtmans