I have always been a huge fan of external DNS resolvers such as OpenDNS and Google Public DNS resolvers. I truly believe that they do improve the online customer experience since most ISPs do either a poor job at managing theirs DNS or they do DNS rewrites. Cloudflare recently launched…
One of the biggest nightmares for any service provider is to find themselves in SLA hell due to poor performance. An issue that negatively impacts end users’ experience is inevitably going to have an effect on a company’s business metrics, and when that happens, they’re going to be looking for…
Modern websites are increasingly dependent on third-party services for most of the features it provides like widgets, ads, social marketing tags, page analytics, conversion tracking, etc. Performance optimization is no longer limited to managing the size and format of the images embedded on a webpage and the page itself; it…
This post was written in partnership with Teridion. The end of the year is a time for reflection. It’s when most of us are looking back at the choices, accomplishments, and mistakes of the year prior and setting goals to improve the following year. It’s also when businesses analyze the year’s trends…
We’ve published several articles on the topic of caching and its role in optimizing web performance in the past. In this article, we will focus specifically on varnish, which is an HTTP accelerator otherwise known as caching HTTP reverse proxy. What are HTTP Accelerators? HTTP accelerators use techniques such as…
A web-based dashboard is similar in function to a vehicle dashboard in many ways. A vehicle dashboard typically features tools and symbols will help the driver monitor multiple items at once like speed, fuel, engine functioning, etc. Not only do these meters and indicators help ensure a safe and pleasant…
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a common and reliable transmission protocol on the Internet. TCP was introduced in the 70s by Stanford University for US Defense to establish connectivity between distributed systems to maintain a backup of defense information. At the time, TCP was introduced to communicate amongst a selected…
This is the last blog in the series on sampling. In the previous editions (Part I, Part IIa, and Part IIb), we had (a) provided an overview of the metrics arms race and had walked through the use of sampling in this regard, (b) overviewed margin of error associated with…
In an earlier blog, the evolution of performance metrics – for example, from load time to above the fold to speed index – was discussed. As much as this evolution is warranted in the wake of the dynamic application landscape and changing user expectations, the phenomenon also contributes to the…
We discussed the MQTT protocol, how it works, and it’s growing role in the digital landscape in a previous blog post. To better understand the content in this article, read up on the basics of Machine to Machine (M2M) in the previous post. We will be using the Catchpoint MQTT monitor…
