October 2016 Summaries

Today's major attack on Dyn's DNS servers caused many popular websites to be down. As a developer, it is crucial to have strategies in place to work around such issues. Ably, a data stream network, has implemented several fallback strategies to ensure availability and reduce single points of failure. These include operating two primary endpoints with different domain registries, using separate DNS providers for each domain, having no reliance on a single datacenter, and having a distributed denial of service strategy in place. By addressing these potential vulnerabilities, Ably ensures that its customers can rely on their services to be up 100% of the time.

Ballr, a mobile fan engagement technology company, has partnered with realtime messaging provider Ably to enhance global sports fans' experience during live events. Founded in 2015 by Sam Jones, Ballr provides a free gaming platform that enables fans to connect, compete, and communicate in real-time. The partnership aims to process high volumes of data generated during matches, allowing millions of users to participate in real-time video games based on micro-moments within the game. Winners receive exclusive experiences and prizes. Ballr's mission is to connect the world through live sports using technology, while Ably offers versatile APIs for developing dependable real-time applications at scale.

Realtime data delivery solutions are often seen as unreliable due to the possibility of data loss or incorrect ordering. However, Ably's protocol, client libraries, and platform provide a truly reliable transport for delivering real-time data. The design decisions taken at Ably were heavily influenced by TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), which is responsible for providing a reliable byte stream with features such as data ordering, error detection, data de-duplication, resending lost packets, and flow and congestion control. Similarly, the Ably protocol ensures that data received is in the order it was sent and without any missing packets. When there is a problem that cannot be fixed by the Ably protocol, an error event is sent to the application using the Ably transport, indicating loss of continuity and requiring developer action such as reconnecting or re-attaching channels.

Smart notifications are an evolving concept in customer experience and communication strategies. As messaging has become more personalized with mobile devices, the potential for intrusive, overwhelming, and annoying notifications has increased. However, smart notifications can drive retention rates by over 100% when done well. The challenge is to provide relevant and useful notifications that are desired without being intrusive or annoying. Smart notifications should be attention-aware, medium-aware, context-sensitive, behavior-driven, results-driven, connectivity-resilient, action-enriched, deeply-integrated, real-time, and self-learning. Companies like Ably are working to deliver on the promise of smart notifications by providing the necessary infrastructure and capabilities.