On June 8, 2021, Fastly - the leading CDN provider in the US experienced a network outage, causing service interruptions for hundreds of major websites. Millions of web users around the world have reported problems accessing websites and apps like Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, BBC…
So what happened?
Fastly, like other CDN providers, utilizes a large network of web servers (also known as PoPs) to deliver content from the closest PoP, to speed up content delivery to end-users. . However, on June 8, Fastly encountered a problem, making companies using their services unable to operate on the internet, specifically as follows:
• Early in the morning of June 8 (around 5 a.m.), Fastly announced that they are investigating the causes affecting the performance of CDNs. Within 60 minutes, they fixed the problem.
• Specifically at 5:57 am: The problem has been identified. However, it is forecast that the customer’s origin server may experience a large increase in CDN traffic when Fastly’s global CDN network is back up and running.
• At 6:41: Fastly’s CDN system has been restored.
How does Multi CDN help with this problem?
It can be seen from this problem that large CDN providers like Fastly can also experience problems and stop working at any time, affecting the website performance of all users of the service.
Regardless of whether it is for business purposes or promoting brands on the internet, all websites must always be in a state of readiness to serve users. Therefore, it is essential to eliminate the risk of crashes for websites and web applications. You should consider using a Multi CDN.
VNIS’s Multi CDN solution helps to integrate many different CDN providers into a common platform, thereby optimizing content delivery speed and eliminating problems with high latency or outages.
How does VNIS’s Multi CDN work?
VNIS uses the RUM system and monitors the entire CDN system, it collects network performance data such as CDN latency and availability.
These analysis data will be fed into VNIS’s processor and the system will automatically select the best performing CDN to serve the transmission requirements. It’s called: Smart Load Balancing.
The data is also displayed on the dashboard, giving the system administrator a comprehensive view of the performance of each CDN at a specific point in time.
Fastly is also one of the Power-Up CDNs built into the VNIS platform. Assuming that when Fastly’s CDN system has a problem as above, VNIS’s intelligent load balancing system will swap Fastly’s CDN with another Power-Up CDN with the best performance to carry the load while Fastly recovers again. back to the best state.
VNIS’s system has helped many major customers worldwide to eliminate CDN problems and has received no complaints from our customers.
VNIS’s intelligent load balancing system transferred all traffic requests from Fastly to Akamai while Fastly had problems.
On the breakdown, we also clearly see CDN Fastly availability over the same time period. This is the most concrete demonstration of what happened to Fastly’s CDN.
Data breakdown of different CDNs at the time of Fastly’s crash
Of course, every major CDN provider in the world guarantees top performance for their customers, but anything can happen. And VNIS’s Platform has helped customers reduce risks to ensure the system works at all times.
Tips for using a global CDN
The CDN Fastly incident above should serve as a wake-up call, reminding us that any CDN service, large or small, can experience an outage.
Therefore, using only 1 CDN may not be ideal for ensuring your website service is up and running as fast as possible.
Choosing a Multi CDN solution is a smart decision that will help you eliminate CDN problems.
If you need to learn about Multi CDN, do not hesitate to call us at HL: (028) 7306 8789