December 2012 Summaries

This article discusses the challenges of optimizing mobile network performance at Layer 4 of the networking stack. It explains how TCP Congestion Control algorithms work and their limitations on mobile networks, which are more susceptible to interference resulting in packet loss. The author provides several suggestions for improving performance for visitors connecting via mobile networks, including upgrading your kernel, enabling Proportional Rate Reduction (PRR), adjusting initcwnd and initrwnd values, and setting tcp_slow_start_after_idle=0. Additionally, the article highlights some upcoming features in newer Linux kernels that may further improve mobile network performance.

On December 22, 2012, Kristin Tarr announced that GamaSec, an online web vulnerability-assessment service, has partnered with CloudFlare to make their scanning service available as a CloudFlare app. This integration allows any CloudFlare customer to easily turn on GamaSec's cloud-based security scan, which serves as an early-warning defense system for websites and online information. The GamaSec Application Vulnerability Scanner identifies various application vulnerabilities and ranks threat priority while producing intuitive HTML reports. Regular use of GamaSec provides benefits such as automated scans, easy dashboard & reporting, web application SaaS Scanner, update vulnerability protection, a trusted website security seal, and web application scan via cloud computing. The service is available in two plans: Basic for $7.99 per month, per domain, and Premium for $16.99 per month, per domain.

The article by John Graham-Cumming on CloudFlare's network shows a significant increase in DDoS attack statistics during the Thanksgiving holiday period, with 1/5 of attacks occurring on Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday. Unlike Earth Day when there was a large drop in attack activity due to machines being turned off, this year's Thanksgiving showed that many hacked machines were online throughout the holiday. Looking back at December 2011 data, CloudFlare observed two peaks of DDoS attack activity: one just before Christmas and another just after. This suggests that while there may be a brief lull during the Christmas holiday period, attackers will likely continue to disrupt businesses during critical pre- and post-Christmas sales periods. Despite this, CloudFlare's staff remains vigilant in protecting against attacks.

CloudFlare's Railgun technology significantly speeds up the delivery of non-cached web pages by using delta compression to reduce data sent over the internet. Testing with Railgun showed large speedup in page delivery and a median decrease in page load time to 89% of the non-accelerated time, improving user experience worldwide. The technology is particularly beneficial for sites that have already optimized their page load times.

Luxury Link, a luxury travel ecommerce platform, has seen significant growth in online holiday shopping, accounting for almost 25% of total ecommerce sales in 2012. The company's technology needs have evolved over the years to accommodate increased competition and consumer demands for personalized and guided vacation experiences. Tips offered by Chris Holland, Director of Technology at Luxury Link, include focusing on site performance, SEO, business intelligence, merchandising, seasonal relevance, A/B testing, and community engagement. The company has observed a 50% increase in traffic during the holiday season and uses CloudFlare to improve site speed and ensure optimal performance.

Ryan Kirkman and Thomas Davis developed CDNJS, a project aimed at making JavaScript resources load as fast as possible. They initially hosted it on Amazon's CloudFront CDN but switched to CloudFlare due to increasing costs. Today, CDNJS is the fastest Javascript repository on the internet. The benefits of using a CDN for JavaScript include faster loading times and browser caching. Google and Microsoft also have public repositories for popular JavaScript resources, but they are limited in scope and slow to update. CDNJS offers a wide range of web's JavaScript resources, with the latest versions available for free. It is now expanding beyond just JavaScript by adding CSS and images for popular packages like Bootstrap.

In December 2012, Matthew Prince discussed how they made SSL faster by enabling OCSP stapling across their network, resulting in a 30% performance increase on SSL handshakes for browsers that supported it. However, further investigation revealed areas where they could improve their SSL deployment. They took this criticism to heart and released an improved SSL process with the goal of providing the fastest, strongest SSL with the most ubiquitous browser support. They developed a system to find the shortest path between a user's uploaded certificate and a trusted root certificate in browsers, ranking chains based on factors such as length, security, and validity period. This resulted in an optimized server bundle that was small, fast, and strong while having ubiquitous browser support. They also planned to release their SSL bundler as a free service for anyone who wanted the fastest possible SSL for their given certificate.

On December 10, 2012, John Roberts discussed the importance of having a privacy policy for websites and how challenging it is to write one without legal expertise. He introduced iubenda's CloudFlare App as a solution that helps generate easy-to-read and understand privacy policies while staying up-to-date with worldwide policies and requirements. The service costs $2.25 per month per site, making it accessible for small businesses. The integration process is simple and customizable, allowing website owners to modify the policy according to their practices. CloudFlare encourages other developers to consider building their Apps via this platform to reach a wider audience.

Matthieu Tourne from CloudFlare shares how they use Nginx, a popular reverse proxy service, with Lua, a scripting language that is easy to integrate and has minimalistic design. They have been adding more simple services written in Lua to their infrastructure. The benefits of using Nginx+Lua include its asynchronous nature, blazingly fast speed due to the LuaJIT interpreter, and no need for callbacks. An example of a log aggregator for Nginx is provided, which can be added to any existing configuration. Using Lua instead of custom C modules allows for adding interesting new capabilities to Nginx while being easy to write and maintain.

The article discusses the problem of latency in web page loading due to the distance between servers and users, and how it can be mitigated by compressing dynamically generated content. It explains that while caching technologies help with static content, they are not effective for dynamic HTML content which is often personalized or frequently updated. The author then introduces external dictionaries of common web content as a solution to this problem, and describes two proposals - SDCH and ESI - that attempted to implement this concept but faced adoption challenges due to the complexity involved in generating shared dictionaries. Finally, the article presents CloudFlare's Railgun technology which uses delta compression to send only the differences between versions of a web page, resulting in significant reduction in data transmission and improved loading times.

On December 4th, 2012, CloudFlare announced its partnership with Parallels, a global leader in hosting and cloud services enablement. This collaboration enables service providers using Plesk or Parallels Automation to offer their customers easy access to CloudFlare's performance and security features. The integration allows for seamless installation of CloudFlare within 5 minutes, enabling users to activate the service with just a few clicks. Since its soft launch, over a hundred Parallels Service Providers have successfully integrated CloudFlare, resulting in benefits such as reduced server load, bandwidth savings, protection from DDoS attacks, and an automatic IPv4/6 gateway. The partnership has been well-received by industry leaders like SoftCom, LuxCloud, and Velocity Host, who appreciate the enhanced performance and security features offered to their customers through CloudFlare's integration with Parallels Automation and Plesk Panel.

On December 01, 2012 at 3:35 PM, partial internet connectivity was reestablished in Syria after a shutdown. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) maps showed that Syria's network connected to multiple external networks, including PCCW and TATA. Later, connections were also made with Turk Telecom. The reconnection occurred in two phases: at 1432 UTC with PCCW and TATA, and at 1557 UTC with Turk Telecom. By 1706 UTC, internal monitoring by CloudFlare confirmed that traffic was flowing from Syrian IP addresses onto the internet, including both fixed and mobile IP addresses. Traffic levels returned to pre-shutdown levels almost immediately after reconnection. No further routing changes have been observed since 1558 UTC, indicating stability in connectivity and traffic levels.