Deploy for Performance: Fastly's Principles of Infrastructure Diversity and Soft Control

Fastly's approach to building a resilient and high-performing global network focuses on two key principles: infrastructure diversity and soft influence. Infrastructure diversity involves using varied hardware, software, and network configurations across Fastly's Points of Presence (PoPs) to mitigate risks associated with uniformity and prevent widespread outages, thereby enhancing system resilience. This diversity allows Fastly to reroute traffic if a PoP is affected, ensuring continuous availability. Soft influence leverages real-time observability data to subtly guide network traffic, optimizing performance by directing users to the best-performing caches and ensuring minimal latency and high reliability. This method allows Fastly to dynamically adapt to changing network conditions, improving user experience and maintaining service continuity. Through these principles, Fastly demonstrates a commitment to performance, reliability, and resilience, ensuring that content is delivered rapidly and consistently, even amidst the dynamic challenges of the internet.