Web hosting and caching: Speed up content delivery for a better customer experience

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1 Web hosting and caching: Speed up content delivery for a better customer experience The cloud offers many benefits in terms of speeding up information delivery and there are cost benefits too. You can use the cloud to make your hosted web content more accessible to your end users by caching. With caching, organisations benefit from better application performance, better scalability, and cost savings. You can get your content closer to your customers. WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS: Discover how to get your content closer to your customers and improve their experience Be advised of the steps to take for success Understand why the cloud is ideal for your web hosting and caching strategy Learn how TelecityGroup s Cloud-IX can provide a secure and reliable connection between you and your cloud service provider

2 THE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY DEFINING WEBHOSTING AND CACHING The internet may have created a global village, but in reality it s still a long way from one neighbourhood to another. Information frequently needs to traverse a range of different physical networks across multiple continents, from the servers that house it to the mobile devices and PCs that consume it. Written by David Hall, TelecityGroup Even when travelling at the speed of light, this data takes time to traverse continents, and the internet s many electrical components also take time to process it, which slows it down. The cloud presents an opportunity not only to speed up information and content delivery, but to save money too. Companies presenting information and services to users online are hosting web content. They allow organisations to interact with customers, business partners and often employees, via the web. Simple static web sites are a good example of hosted web content, but in recent years, these sites have become more dynamic, focusing on specific applications such as CRM or online collaboration. With TelecityGroup s help, you can use the cloud to make your hosted web content more accessible to your end users by caching. This moves web-based content as close to the end user as possible via a content delivery network with caching locations around the world. Caching offers several benefits: Better application performance Because cached data sits close to the user s physical location on the internet, it travels through less of the Internet s infrastructure to reach them. That means that it arrives quicker, and therefore improves their experience of the web application. Better scalability Information that is cached close to a collection of users can be streamed from a single point to multiple people without having to traverse large parts of the Internet. The more people that access information from a geographical region, the more benefit a company will see from a data caching solution. Think of it as delivering magazines by van from a local store, rather than having to drive back to the printing house on the other side of the country every time a customer wants to read a magazine. Cost effectiveness Users may want information to be free, but someone still has to pay for it to be delivered. In many cases, the owner of the traffic must pay its ISP to send the traffic across the Internet, where it will probably pass through one or more other ISPs. Caching the information locally reduces the fees that the content originator has to pay their ISP. ACCELERATING DIGITAL : USING HYBRID CLOUD RESOURCES TO DELIVER BUSINESS OUTCOMES Watch this TelecityGroup Webinar featuring Gartner for advice on how to get the most from your hybrid cloud solution. WATCH WEBINAR 2015 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

3 WEBHOSTING AND CACHING IN BRIEF CHALLENGES Opportunities Better application performance Better scalability Cost effectiveness Challenges Contract length STEPS TO SUCCESS Working with a competent cloud services partner is one of the first steps towards a cohesive and efficient content distribution and caching strategy. Here are five others that will help you to realise the cost savings and service improvements available. 1. Identify what content to cache Some content is more appropriate to move than others. Sensitive data that you don t want to replicate online may be kept away from a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Static content that is rarely updated is a prime candidate for caching. Caching data online may offer many benefits, but only the bravest companies would attempt to do this themselves. There are several key challenges that make this all but unviable in-house. Here are some of the main problems. One of the biggest concerns for organisations caching their data is security. Should data be tampered with en route to a caching provider s network, the results could be disastrous for the owner of the content. Malware could be inserted, for example, or the content could be changed to adversely affect the content owner s reputation. Content distribution networks are not all the same. Some of them have different coverage areas than others, and some of them focus on particular types of delivery more than others. Your content needs may not be served by a single provider, which puts you in the difficult position of choosing one service set over another without meeting all of your requirements. Contract length Contracts for content distribution can often be long-term relationships. That exposes you to risk, should a company change it s strategy, or fail to deliver as well as expected. 2. Prioritise problem content Identify the content that is taking longer for remote users to download. Look for large files that are crucial for operation, but also look at what pages are experiencing the highest bounce rate and therefore not converting to sales. 3. Find out where end users are located Know where your data is going. Where are the people accessing your content concentrated? Profile their geographic distribution and usage patterns. 4. Choose a caching provider Caching providers will help you to store your data in the right place, but ensure that their service offering correlates directly with your own data and audience characteristics, gathered during steps Use a secure pipeline Work with a provider such as TelecityGroup to get a secure link to your caching provider, preventing malicious tampering with your traffic en route. ASSESS YOUR CLOUD STRATEGY Is your cloud strategy on the right path for digital transformation? ASSESS YOUR CLOUD STRATEGY

4 HOW THE CLOUD CAN HELP USING CLOUD-IX FOR CACHING Given that content is cached online, cloud-based services are the perfect delivery vehicle for managed distribution. Here are several ways in which the cloud can be used to improve your online content strategy. Cost It will be difficult to handle content caching at all without the cloud, because of the required infrastructure investment. Using content distribution networks in the cloud makes caching possible. Even if a company did invest in it s own content distribution network, it would be difficult to distribute content ubiquitously to all regions where users accessed content. Working with a cloud-based content distribution network solves that problem, because ubiquity is a core competency for CDNs. Elasticity A content distribution network operating as a cloud partner can scale content delivery in a given location up and down depending on local demand. This can help to cope with demand spikes without impacting end-user performance in a way that you couldn t do if running your own in-house. TelecityGroup s Cloud-IX is an aggregation solution for customers who want the flexibility to use multiple cloud service providers in a fluid and friction-free way. It provides several benefits specific to online data caching. TelecityGroup s Cloud-IX provides a secure pipeline to your chosen content distribution network, so that you can be sure your data is protected all the way from your servers to the cached destination. Flexibility Cloud-IX works with multiple content distribution network providers to ensure that you have the best caching strategy to suit your particular needs. Ease of access Cloud-IX offers a simple, easy-to-access aggregation solution, which takes the burden away from you when negotiating services with multiple cloud providers. TelecityGroup is the ideal partner for companies that want to cache their content. We have spent years building a solid presence in the European market, and now have some of the richest connectivity concentrations here. Our locations represent the physical home of the Internet in Europe, and we also peer with multiple carriers and network providers in these locations. This physical distribution of data centres not only helps customers cache content in the cloud, but also helps them reach their own customers with content which can be distributed around multiple geographies. CONTACT AN EXPERT Request a free cloud strategy consultation with our cloud experts. CONTACT AN EXPERT

5 Outstanding data centres Expertise you can trust. A leading European data centre provider. Contact us: cloud-ixenquiries@telecity.com Phone: +44(0)