Akamai coming to custom hostnames

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Comments

  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 4, 2009
    Sorry for the bad timing. The changes you made will increase the speed of your site. I think that there is something going on with the site in general right now. I just got back from the gym so I have not checked everything but I think that is what is going on. Please give it a little bit and check again. It should be much faster once the site is running smooth.
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • 81dollar81dollar Registered Users Posts: 27 Big grins
    edited May 6, 2009
    [geek]

    Is there an approximate ETA for the switch? Looks promising, I'm really looking forward to the speed increase

    clap.gif

    [/geek]
  • teegraincateegrainca Registered Users Posts: 2 Beginner grinner
    edited May 8, 2009
    Domain name not working
    Hi! I was wondering if anyone was aware or any problems with smugmug with regard to modified domain names.

    My smugmug site is: http://karenpavlovic.smugmug.com

    My purchased domain is: www.karenpavlovicphotography.com

    This has been up and working for over a month and now, all of a sudden, when I try to access my website I get an "Access Denied" error in IE. "I don't have permission to use the server"

    I've made no significant changes. My custom homepage in smugmug hasn't changes (www.karenpavlovicphotography.com), I have my domain with Active Domains and the CNAME record (domains.smugmug.com) and A record (208.79.45.23) haven't changed either.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks!
    Karen
  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 8, 2009
    Karen, I think you tried to access this during our scheduled maintenance last night. It should be working now. Please give it a try and let me know if you are still seeing the error. I tested and did not see anything wrong. So I thing the maintenance was to blame.
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 9, 2009
    Akamai should be live for people who have their custom hostnames properly configured now. We're hearing reports of major speed boosts.
  • TalkieTTalkieT Registered Users Posts: 491 Major grins
    edited May 9, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    Akamai should be live for people who have their custom hostnames properly configured now. We're hearing reports of major speed boosts.

    Cool - is there any way for us to confirm if we've been Akamaised? Apart from the speed of course!

    The reason I ask is that I am pretty sure I have been configured correctly, and I haven't noticed an increased in speed... It might be to do with me being on the other side of the world though... So I hoped there was another way to confirm if my site is being cached by Akamai for everyone else...

    EDIT - Figured it out...

    This is a trace to smugmug.com... It gets the usual 200 odd ms and hops all the way to San Jose...
    tracert smugmug.com

    Tracing route to smugmug.com [208.79.45.23]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms twentya.home [192.168.199.244]
    2 31 ms 30 ms 29 ms 60.234.8.200
    3 59 ms 58 ms 50 ms ge-0-0-3-201.cre2.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.69]
    4 48 ms 50 ms 45 ms ge-1-3-0-0.bdr2.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.38]
    5 77 ms 77 ms 77 ms g2-0-1-118.tkbr10.global-gateway.net.nz [203.96.66.97]
    6 84 ms 76 ms 73 ms xe7-0-0-2.tkbr9.global-gateway.net.nz [203.96.120.221]
    7 208 ms 219 ms 221 ms so7-0-1.labr5.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.127.38]
    8 197 ms 198 ms 202 ms so7-0-3.sjbr2.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.127.54]
    9 205 ms 206 ms 208 ms so-0-0-0.pabr4.global-gateway.net.nz [203.96.120.218]
    10 162 ms 163 ms 169 ms ge-6-24.car2.SanJose2.Level3.net [4.59.4.25]
    11 165 ms 162 ms 165 ms ae-23-79.car3.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.18.69]
    12 227 ms 208 ms 223 ms SMUGMUG-INC.car3.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.71.112.10]
    13 185 ms 194 ms 192 ms smugmug.com [208.79.45.23]

    This is a tracert to my site through the custom hostname (nzsnaps.com). It resolves to an Akamai box and the latency is suitably shorter - indicating it's being served only from Sydney, in Australia, not the other side of the world...
    tracert nzsnaps.com

    Tracing route to e1021.c.akamaiedge.net [122.252.44.77]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms twentya.home [192.168.199.244]
    2 31 ms 30 ms 33 ms 60.234.8.200
    3 49 ms 52 ms 90 ms ge-0-0-3-201.cre2.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.69]
    4 53 ms 47 ms 45 ms ae1-0.cre1.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.13]
    5 * 44 ms 43 ms ge-1-3-0-0.bdr1.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.34]
    6 58 ms 60 ms 57 ms ge-2-2-0.gw4.akl1.asianetcom.net [203.192.166.69]
    7 79 ms 81 ms 85 ms po4-0.cr2.syd1.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.254]
    8 61 ms 58 ms 54 ms gi1-3.gw2.syd1.asianetcom.net [202.147.40.190]
    9 86 ms 81 ms 85 ms gi1-0-1.gw1.syd2.asianetcom.net [202.147.40.194]
    10 57 ms 55 ms 55 ms 202.167.228.102
    11 71 ms 65 ms 63 ms www.nzsnaps.com [122.252.44.77]

    I get similar times and the same route if I add www in front of nzsnaps.com, but it doesn't resolve to Akamai.. odd.
    tracert www.nzsnaps.com

    Tracing route to www.nzsnaps.com [122.252.44.77]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms twentya.home [192.168.199.244]
    2 31 ms 30 ms 31 ms 60.234.8.200
    [snip]
    9 84 ms 82 ms 74 ms gi1-0-1.gw1.syd2.asianetcom.net [202.147.40.194]
    10 54 ms 54 ms 54 ms 202.167.228.102
    11 69 ms 68 ms 67 ms www.nzsnaps.com [122.252.44.77]

    And finally, I go to my smugmug site with the smugmug based URL...
    tracert talkiet.smugmug.com

    Tracing route to a539.b.akamai.net [60.234.9.243]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms twentya.home [192.168.199.244]
    2 31 ms 30 ms 30 ms 60.234.8.200
    3 53 ms 51 ms 50 ms ge-0-0-3-201.cre2.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.69]
    4 59 ms 59 ms 53 ms edge.quantserve.com [60.234.9.243]

    That IS nice and short!

    Regards
    Neil G
    --
    http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)
  • FergusonFerguson Registered Users Posts: 1,345 Major grins
    edited May 9, 2009
    My custom domain works, mostly. I got a mild error on a DNS test elsewhere which made me double check it was set up right.

    Either I'm blind or there is an inconsistency in the instructions. I have the CNAME correct I think (www.captivephotons.com to domains.smugmug.com), but the A record is the question.

    I am using 208.79.45.23.

    However, the test recommended at the beginning of this thread:


    http://www.smugmug.com/homepage/dig.mg?hostname=www.captivephotons.com

    Yields a "fail" based on using that address:


    FAIL: Custom hostname captivephotons.com is pointing to 208.79.45.23 (www.smugmug.com) instead of 96.6.244.77 (domains.smugmug.com).


    What's the right address for the "A" record? It appears the documentation says one thing and the test program another? Or maybe I'm just not reading it correctly?
  • cabbeycabbey Registered Users Posts: 1,053 Major grins
    edited May 10, 2009
    Ferguson wrote:
    What's the right address for the "A" record? It appears the documentation says one thing and the test program another? Or maybe I'm just not reading it correctly?

    Stick with what the docs say. I think the tool needs to be updated. The opperative goal is that your non-cnamed address (i.e. the non-www version) goes to our server and gets redirected to the correct url, which is then akamaized.
    SmugMug Sorcerer - Engineering Team Champion for Commerce, Finance, Security, and Data Support
    http://wall-art.smugmug.com/
  • devbobodevbobo Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 4,339 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 15, 2009
    Ferguson wrote:
    My custom domain works, mostly. I got a mild error on a DNS test elsewhere which made me double check it was set up right.

    Either I'm blind or there is an inconsistency in the instructions. I have the CNAME correct I think (www.captivephotons.com to domains.smugmug.com), but the A record is the question.

    I am using 208.79.45.23.

    However, the test recommended at the beginning of this thread:


    http://www.smugmug.com/homepage/dig.mg?hostname=www.captivephotons.com

    Yields a "fail" based on using that address:


    FAIL: Custom hostname captivephotons.com is pointing to 208.79.45.23 (www.smugmug.com) instead of 96.6.244.77 (domains.smugmug.com).


    What's the right address for the "A" record? It appears the documentation says one thing and the test program another? Or maybe I'm just not reading it correctly?

    The dig tool has been fixed :D
    David Parry
    SmugMug API Developer
    My Photos
  • FrancoFranco Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
    edited May 18, 2009
    docwalker wrote:
    Sorry for the bad timing. The changes you made will increase the speed of your site. I think that there is something going on with the site in general right now. I just got back from the gym so I have not checked everything but I think that is what is going on. Please give it a little bit and check again. It should be much faster once the site is running smooth.

    Hi Doc-

    I wanted to let you know that the speed did finally improve significantly. However, I noticed today that my four other domains that are fowarded to my primary domain with the updated ARecord pointed to 208.79.45.23 and the CNAME upated to www (host) and @ (points to) are going to the the main SmugMug home page instead of my primary domain. For example, one of my other four domains is www.StephenJFranco.com , which is not being redirected to my www.StephenJFrancoPhotography.com primary domain. Could you let me know how to fix this problem?

    Thank you,
    Stephen
  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 18, 2009
    Stephen,

    Only one domain can be pointed straight to a SmugMug account at a time. So now, what you should do is point those domains using forwarding to the one that is correctly setup. I have tips on this page here: http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Multiple+Domains

    --Doc
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • FrancoFranco Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
    edited May 18, 2009
    docwalker wrote:
    Stephen,

    Only one domain can be pointed straight to a SmugMug account at a time. So now, what you should do is point those domains using forwarding to the one that is correctly setup. I have tips on this page here: http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Multiple+Domains

    --Doc

    Hi Doc-

    Yep, understood already that one domain can only be pointed straight to SmugMug. However, I went ahead to the link you indicated and read all the way down the page. I noticed the GoDaddy user info at the bottom of the page and went to this link indicated: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=846429&postcount=7
    I tried doing what the instructions indicated for the "additional domains" and set it up as mentioned (noticed the Points to is using 64.202.189.170, but I had it using 208.79.45.23 - which I thought was the new IP). Still no change. Maybe I'm getting confused. Any suggestions??? headscratch.gif

    Thanks!
  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 18, 2009
    Ignore what that post says. Do what I say in the wiki. Forward the other domains to the primary one. The other post is mainly about redirecting when changing domains.
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • FrancoFranco Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
    edited May 18, 2009
    docwalker wrote:
    Ignore what that post says. Do what I say in the wiki. Forward the other domains to the primary one. The other post is mainly about redirecting when changing domains.

    Hi Doc-

    I guess I'm not understanding the wiki. O.k. - Before all this "new" stuff rolled out, I could have my primary custom domain (i.e., www.StephenJFrancoPhotography.com) set up so that it redirected to my SmugMug account. Then, I also had my secondary domains fowarded to my primary domain and everything worked beautifully. Now, SmugMug made this change so that I had to update my GoDaddy account with the new IP address, etc. Now, my secondary domains don't work unless I "host a page on the internet somewhere" or "create an Intro page hosted on a web server." Why am I as a Pro Account User having to go jump through all these hoops when it was working just fine previously? So now it sounds like I'm going to have to contact GoDaddy and pay for a hosted page. Am I understanding this correctly?
  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited May 19, 2009
    I am not sure why it worked for you before. We never officialy supported the type of setup as you describe it. We don't officially support multiple domains now. What I am giving you is a work around.

    With GoDaddy, use the forwarding. BUT DO NOT MASK. It will work thumb.gif
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • FrancoFranco Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
    edited May 19, 2009
    docwalker wrote:
    I am not sure why it worked for you before. We never officialy supported the type of setup as you describe it. We don't officially support multiple domains now. What I am giving you is a work around.

    With GoDaddy, use the forwarding. BUT DO NOT MASK. It will work thumb.gif

    Hi Doc-

    Not sure why it worked either, but for some strange reason (luck of the Gods or something like it) it did in the past. Anyway, I think I have it working now (or soon to be in 24 hours). There was a problem with one of my domains under GoDaddy - so their Tech Support helped. So, if nothing else, that domain problem was uncovered with this SmugMug update. Hmmmm - Maybe luck of the Gods again.... Guess I should go buy a lottery ticket today.... rolleyes1.gif

    Thanks for the help - sorry to vent on you (updates are usually are a pain for me, because I always encounter problems).

    Have fun,
    Franco
  • robertleerobertlee Registered Users Posts: 108 Major grins
    edited June 6, 2009
    validation that SmugMug sees the correct setup
    I recently did the above suggested validation and everything
    passed; however I received the following warning.

    "Warning: Message parser reports malformed message packet."

    Do I need do be concerned about the warning?

    Since the validation passed; can I be assured that
    everything is setup properly and that I am
    achieving the maximum speed.

    www.rlsimaging.com
  • docwalkerdocwalker Registered Users Posts: 1,867 SmugMug Employee
    edited June 10, 2009
    I am not familiar with that particular error. It does not look to be related to the domain itself. If you are having any trouble, contact me via the help desk. I will take a look and see if we can get it figured out.
    SmugMug Support Hero
    http://help.smugmug.com
  • photostuffphotostuff Registered Users Posts: 105 Major grins
    edited June 22, 2009
    robertlee wrote:
    I recently did the above suggested validation and everything
    passed; however I received the following warning.
    "Warning: Message parser reports malformed message packet."
    Do I need do be concerned about the warning?
    Since the validation passed; can I be assured that
    everything is setup properly and that I am
    achieving the maximum speed.
    I received the same error message with my pass validation but I do not think it is related to the domain itself, just how the validation is reported. My guess at least.
  • Andrew MaimanAndrew Maiman Registered Users Posts: 50 Big grins
    edited June 23, 2009
    Nice, just found this thread and changed from an 'A' record to a CNAME for http://photos.maiman.net

    Don't forget to add a "." to the end of "domains.smugmug.com" if you run your own nameserver (bind), or it won't work. 11doh.gif
    It should look something like this for a subdomain record:
    photos  14400   IN      CNAME   domains.smugmug.com.
    
  • agalliaagallia Registered Users Posts: 541 Major grins
    edited July 27, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    Many customers have noticed...

    ...Q: Is there a way I can check that my domain is setup correctly from SmugMug?
    A: Yes! See these directions for details.
    Let us know if you have questions!

    All the best,
    Baldy
    Thanks much for this check link. Tested and worked quickly...Passed!
    Acadiana Al
    Smugmug: Bayou Oaks Studio
    Blog: Journey to the Light
    "Serendipity...the faculty of making happy, unexpected discoveries by accident." .... Horace Walpole, 1754 (perhaps that 'lucky shot' wasn't really luck at all!)
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited July 28, 2009
    Akamai seems to be doing its job:

    591038862_Uivxu-O.jpg
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 28, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    Akamai seems to be doing its job:

    591038862_Uivxu-O.jpg
    What exactly does this measure? Load time for http://www.smugmug.com? Load time for an actual user's homepage? Load time for a category page? Load time for a gallery and all of it's thumbnails and main image in Smugmug view to load?

    I ask because I have NEVER ever seen a Smugmug gallery load in 0.156 seconds. I just loaded one of my galleries and it took 5 seconds for the thumbs and main image to show up and some of that probably came from my disk cache.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
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  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited July 28, 2009
    jfriend wrote:
    What exactly does this measure? Load time for http://www.smugmug.com? Load time for an actual user's homepage? Load time for a category page? Load time for a gallery and all of it's thumbnails and main image in Smugmug view to load?

    I ask because I have NEVER ever seen a Smugmug gallery load in 0.156 seconds. I just loaded one of my galleries and it took 5 seconds for the thumbs and main image to show up and some of that probably came from my disk cache.
    The good news is the measurement takes place on actual person's machines, the people who install the Alexa toolbar. No one knows how many people have it installed, but Alexa claims millions.

    The bad news is it makes for very gross averages of pages they visit and configurations of their own machine, network, browser, cache, the size of their monitor (and thus the size of images we serve up, etc.). For some people, their caches are slow because their caches are big so their actual page load times have the perception of being slow.

    We used to use the FasterFox plugin to check details about page load times on different configs. Here are the results from a testing service that I used a few moments ago for my home page, http://cmac.smugmug.com, which has a lot on it, in various places around the world:

    20090729-k98m47uf5hjr1bh3myr1y1r8nb.jpg

    Your mileage could vary for a lot of reasons, such as we can't serve up images from unlisted or passworded galleries nearly as fast. If you right-click protect an image, you perceive it's load time to be long. If you have a lot of thumbs on the page, depending on your browser, it may be limited as to how many streams it has open at a time. And for the big photo Journal-style gallery that went viral, people noticed it was faster for Safari, which had multiple threads for rendering, than for Firefox, which has one.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 28, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    The good news is the measurement takes place on actual person's machines, the people who install the Alexa toolbar. No one knows how many people have it installed, but Alexa claims millions.

    The bad news is it makes for very gross averages of pages they visit and configurations of their own machine, network, browser, cache, the size of their monitor (and thus the size of images we serve up, etc.). For some people, their caches are slow because their caches are big so their actual page load times have the perception of being slow.

    We used to use the FasterFox plugin to check details about page load times on different configs. Here are the results from a testing service that I used a few moments ago for my home page, http://cmac.smugmug.com, which has a lot on it, in various places around the world:



    Your mileage could vary for a lot of reasons, such as we can't serve up images from unlisted or passworded galleries nearly as fast. If you right-click protect an image, you perceive it's load time to be long. If you have a lot of thumbs on the page, depending on your browser, it may be limited as to how many streams it has open at a time. And for the big photo Journal-style gallery that went viral, people noticed it was faster for Safari, which had multiple threads for rendering, than for Firefox, which has one.
    I'm glad it comes from real people's machines, but I guess I still don't know what the Alexa data you posted is measuring. Certainly the homepage load time is important, but at least as important is the gallery load and render time, including all thumbs and the main image. Do you have Alexa measure the gallery load time through full page render and compare that to a full gallery of your competitors?
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
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  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited July 29, 2009
    jfriend wrote:
    I'm glad it comes from real people's machines, but I guess I still don't know what the Alexa data you posted is measuring. Certainly the homepage load time is important, but at least as important is the gallery load and render time, including all thumbs and the main image. Do you have Alexa measure the gallery load time through full page render and compare that to a full gallery of your competitors?
    We can't really do that with Alexa, at least to my knowledge. A geek in the know like Don may have better knowledge than I do about how Alexa does its computation, but I believe it's just an average of pages that users with the toolbar visit on a given domain.

    We do compare specific pages on our site to pages on sites we admire using other services. But there's only so much weight we can put on purely quantitative numbers because users weight perception so much higher than reality.

    I notice quite a few people commented on the expanded Journal style that it seemed very fast. Actually, with the number of large images coming at them, they'd probably be disappointed if they knew what the total page load time was, but the perception is good which is what counts to most people.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 29, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    We can't really do that with Alexa, at least to my knowledge. A geek in the know like Don may have better knowledge than I do about how Alexa does its computation, but I believe it's just an average of pages that users with the toolbar visit on a given domain.

    We do compare specific pages on our site to pages on sites we admire using other services. But there's only so much weight we can put on purely quantitative numbers because users weight perception so much higher than reality.

    I notice quite a few people commented on the expanded Journal style that it seemed very fast. Actually, with the number of large images coming at them, they'd probably be disappointed if they knew what the total page load time was, but the perception is good which is what counts to most people.
    I can see how Alexa might have a hard time knowing when the page load is done because of the Ajax/JS stuff. It does seem like it would be useful to have some way using some service that measures lots of locations to quantify how much Akamai is really helping you with actual gallery load times.

    Isn't that where the real meat and potatoes of photo sharing speed is? Multiple Ajax calls per page, a bunch of javascript, lots of thumbs to load, large main image to load. All that stuff is what happens on a Smugmug gallery page.

    Click a thumb, how long until the new main image is loaded? Click a page indicator, how long until a new page is loaded? Hit full screen slideshow, how long until you get your first fullscreen image? It doesn't sound like Alexa is giving you any of these numbers, but that's the real interactive experience that viewers judge.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited July 31, 2009
    As usual, you have some great points. And of course we care about where they make us faster and that may be a little bit depressing. Akamai is very expensive and partly it's expensive because of its world-wide coverage. So we pay them a bundle to get fast in areas of the world where we mainly have surfers but few subscribers (cough, Asia).
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