Traditionally, content delivery networks (CDNs) were known to accelerate static content. Amazon CloudFront has come a long way and now supports delivery of entire websites that include dynamic and static content. In this session, we introduce you to CloudFront’s dynamic delivery features that help improve the performance, scalability, and availability of your website while helping you lower your costs. We talk about architectural patterns such as SSL termination, close proximity connection termination, origin offload with keep-alive connections, and last-mile latency improvement. Also learn how to take advantage of Amazon Route 53's health check, automatic failover, and latency-based routing to build highly available web apps on AWS.

1. © 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.
Dynamic Content Acceleration:
Lightning-Fast Web Apps with
Amazon CloudFront and
Amazon Route 53
Parviz Deyhim, Solutions Architect
March 26, 2014

2. Fundamental Facts
Any web application must have…
• Tight Security
• High Availability
• High Performance

3. Why Does Availability Matter?
• If your application is not available, your revenue loss is
100%.
• Impact to customer loyalty and your brand image.

4. How AWS Helps?
 Use Amazon Route 53 to health-check your origin
webservers, with automatic failover.
 Use Amazon CloudFront to front your origins to reduce
load on your origins.
 Use Amazon CloudFront to customize your error pages.
 Amazon CloudFront will automatically serve stale
content when origin is unavailable.

5. Why Performance Matters?
• Performance translates to …
• Higher Page Views
• Better Customer Experience
• Higher Conversion Rates

6. Why Performance Matters?

7. Why Performance Matters?
Great amount of time and money spent improving
back-end infrastructure performance

8. Why Performance Matters?
80% of user’s perceived latency comes from front-end

9. How do we Improve Performance ?
A Typical Web Application Has …
• Static or Re-Usable Content
• High TTLs
• Low TTLs (Customized Content)
• Dynamic or Unique Content
• Zero TTL

10. Static or Re-Usable Content
Can be cached (High TTLs or Low TTLs)

11. Typical Architecture

12. Dynamic or Unique Content
Cannot be cached - BUT affects 100% of your viewers!

13. Why Not…?

14. Why Don’t Customers Use a CDN for Dynamic
Content?
I don’t see the value - each request is unique and must go back
to the origin web server.
AND/OR
I see the value, but my current CDN charges premium rates for
dynamic content acceleration, with many additional fees.
AND/OR
Configuring a CDN for dynamic content acceleration requires
expensive professional services and is not self-service.

15. How Can Amazon CloudFront Help?
 TCP/IP optimizations for the network path
 Keep-Alive Connections to reduce RTT
 SSL Termination close to viewers
 POST/PUT upload optimizations
 Latency Based Routing
 Low prices, same as static content delivery!

17. Unique or Reusable Contents?

18. STATIC or REUSABLE
A given content where the state of the content
does NOT change for a given period of time
t0 t1

19. DYNAMIC OR UNIQUE
A given content where the state of the content
changes as soon as it gets created
t0 t1

20. Example

21. Example
Index.jsp (dynamic)
Images (static)

22. Example
. sec

23. Page Load Time?
. Sec

24. Improving Web Application Performance
Accelerating static contents
Accelerating dynamic contents

25. Brief Introduction to Waterfall Graphs

26. Waterfall Graphs
• Most important tool for web-performance measurement
• Most browsers provide waterfall graph plug-ins

27. What Happens?
Typing the Address Browser renders

28. Understanding Waterfall Graph
DNS Lookup
TCP Connection
Time to First Byte
Content Download

29. Understanding Waterfall Graph
Index.jsp

30. Optimizing
Static Content

31. Optimizing Static Contents
Index.jsp
Images, JS and
CSS

32. Optimizing Static Contents
Index.jsp
Optimize By
Caching With
Amazon
CloudFront

33. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
User Request A

34. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
User Request A

35. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
User Request A

36. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
Image
User Request A

37. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
Image
Image
User Request A

38. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
User Request B
Get Image

39. Caching
Origin
Edge
Location
Get ImageImage
User Request B

40. Optimizing Static Contents with Caching
Brings content closer to the users

41. Optimizing Static Contents with Caching
Improves the experience and performance

42. Optimizing Static Contents with Caching
Offloads your infrastructure

44. Before Caching = 1.46sec

45. After Caching = 770ms

46. Are We Done?

47. NOT SO FAST
. secGOAL:

48. Cache As Much As You Can

49. How? I’m Caching
All My Images, CSS
and JS

50. Steps to Find Cachable Contents
1. Collect web (W3C) logs from your web tier
2. Run a report on your logs (EMR, RDS or
Redshift)
3. Identify top N URLs

51. Steps to Find Cachable Contents
Example of query:
Select count(url) count, url
from logs_table
Group by url sort by count;

52. 220 /index.jsp
200 /images/book1.gif
120 /css/style.css
119 /js/script1.js
110
/factory/create_image?name=book1&size=10x10
100 /api/GetBooks?category=math
90 /api/GetBooks?category=math&lang=spanish
80 /api/GetBooks?top=10

53. STATIC or REUSABLE
A given content where the state of the content
does NOT change for a given period of time
t0 t1

54. Caching for Smaller Time Units
• Goal: Find contents that can be cached for any given
period of time
• Hours
• Minutes
• Seconds
• CloudFront can cache content for any period of time

55. Content with Query Strings
Reusable?
110 /factor/create_image?name=book1&size=10x10

56. Content with Query Strings
• CloudFront can cache content with query strings
• Every unique query string combination is a new
object in CloudFront’s cache

57. API Calls
Reusable?
100 /api/GetBooks?category=math

58. API Calls
Reusable?
80 /api/GetBooks?top=10

59. Caching for Smaller Time Units
• Imagine your have a read heavy API GETS Hit 100 or
1000 RPS
• Offload your web-tier from handling 1000 RPS
• Offload your load balancer: ELB or any other LB
• Provision less capacity and reduce cost
1000 /api/GetBooks?top=10

60. Base Page (First HTML page)
Reusable?
220 /index.jsp

61. Optimizing Dynamic
Content

62. Dynamic Content
Index.jsp

63. Optimizing Dynamic Content
Index.jsp

64. Can Dynamic Content Be Optimized?
Dynamic content are not cachable
Content proxied by CDN to the
origin and back

65. Can Dynamic Content Be Optimized?
User
Request
Origin
Edge
Location
Poke
Poke
Ok
Ok
PokePoke
User
Request

66. Can Dynamic Content Be Optimized?
That adds latency?
How to optimize dynamic content?

67. How to Optimize Dynamic Contents?
DNS Lookup
TCP Connection
Time to First Byte
Content Download

68. How to Optimize Dynamic Delivery?
Route 53
Keep-Alive Connections
& SSL Termination
Faster Response Time =
Reduced DNS Time
+
Reduced Connection Time
+
Reduced First Byte Time
+
Reduced Content Download Time
Keep-Alive Connections
TCP/IP Optimization
Rute53
Route 53

69. After Caching/Before CloudFront Dynamic
Acceleration = 770ms

70. How to Improve DNS Time?
DNS Lookup
Index.jsp

71. With Amazon Route 53
Route 53

72. Optimizing DNS Response Time
• Route 53 managed DNS offering
• Designed to be fast
• Low latency DNS resolution
• Global network of DNS servers
• Queries routed to the nearest DNS server

73. Without Route 53

74. With Route 53

75. How to Improve
TCP Connection and First Byte Time?
TCP Connection
Index.jsp

76. With CloudFront’s
Keep-Alive Connections

77. TCP/IP Hand Shake
• HTTP Runs on TCP/IP
• TCP has the concept of TCP handshake
• Every HTTP Connection has to complete TCP
Handshake
• TCP/IP Hand Shake Penalizes Dynamic Contents

78. Two Users without CloudFront
SYN
SYN-ACK
ACK
GET /index.jsp
ACK
SYN-ACK
GET /index.jsp
2nd User
Region
SYN
90ms
360ms
360ms

79. Without CloudFront
Region
• Every user is new
connection
• More users = more
TCP connections

80. Without Keep-Alive Connections
• Puts load on your web servers: Memory/CPU

81. Without Keep-Alive Connections
• Load on your web server increases the time
to first byte
Time to First Byte

82. SYN
SYN-ACK
ACK
GET /index.jsp
GET /index.jsp
Keep Alive Connections
2nd Request

83. CloudFront Keep Alive
SYN
SYN-ACK
ACK
GET /index.jsp
ACK
SYN-ACK
GET /index.jsp
Region
SYN
30ms
SYN
SYN-ACK
ACK
GET /index.jsp
GET /index.jsp
60ms
2nd User
360ms
180ms

84. • More users More TCP connections
• Offloads your web tier’s CPU/memory
• Improves response time
2 connectionsWithout CloudFront
1 connectionWith CloudFront
720 msWithout CloudFront
540 msWith CloudFront
CloudFront Keep Alive

85. Test CPU Util. %
Without CloudFront 20%
With CloudFront 6%

86. How to Optimize My SSL Connections?
TCP Connection
Index.jsp

87. With CloudFront’s
SSL Termination

88. SSL Optimization with CloudFront
• CloudFront has the ability to support SSL traffic
• Use CloudFront cert or bring your own
• SSL traffic gets terminated at the closest
CloudFront location

89. CloudFront SSL Optimization Benefits
• Taking advantage of keep-alive connections
• SSL introduces additional TCP handshake packets
• Keep alive eliminates additional SSL TCP handshake
packets
• Offloading your infrastructure from terminating 1000s of
end-users SSL connections

90. SSL Optimization Patterns with CloudFront
Two optimization patterns:
1. Half bridge SSL termination
2. Full bridge SSL termination

91. Half Bridge SSL Termination
Region
HTTP
CloudFront

92. Half Bridge SSL Termination Benefits
• Better performance by leveraging HTTP
connections to origin
HTTP
CloudFront

93. Full Bridge SSL Termination
Region
HTTPs

94. How to Improve Content Download Time?
Content Download
Index.jsp

95. With Amazon CloudFront
Slow-Start Optimization

96. TCP Slow Start
Packet1
Packet 1 ACK
Packet 2
Packet 3 ACK
Packet 3
Packet 4
Packet 5
Packet 6
Packet 7

97. • CloudFront can optimize slow start
• Slow start impacts new connections not the
existing ones
• CloudFront uses existing connections so users
can skip slow start
Slow-Start Optimization with CloudFront

98. Packet1
Packet 1 ACK
Packet 2
Packet 3 ACK
Packet 3
Packet 4
Packet 5
Packet 6
Packet 7
Packet1
Packet 2
Packet 4 ACK
Packet 3
Packet 4
Packet 5
Packet 6
Packet 7
Packet 8
Packet 9
Region

99. Performance Test 1: Without CloudFront
Oregon Virginia

100. Performance Test 2: With CloudFront
Oregon Virginia

101. Performance Results
Test # Of Packets Response Time Per Request
Response Time For 200
Requests
Without
CloudFront
2605 170 ms 33.876 ms
With
CloudFront
896 96 ms 19.24 ms

102. How to Optimize PUT/POST?
TCP Connection
Index.jsp

103. With Amazon CloudFront
PUT/POST Verb Optimization

104. PUT/POST Optimization with CloudFront
• CloudFront supports verbs: PUT, POST,
DELETE, OPTIONS, and PATCH
• Data won’t get cached
• CloudFront proxies data to origin

105. PUT/POST Optimization with CloudFront
• Dynamic content optimizations apply
– Keep-alive connections
– TCP slow-start optimization
– Close proximity connection termination

106. PUT/POST Optimization with CloudFront
• Optimizing form POSTs
• Optimizing AJAX POST requests
• Optimizing content upload
– Uploading to S3

107. PUT/POST Optimization Test
Oregon Virginia
Upload
Upload
U
pload
CloudFront

108. PUT/POST Optimization Test
Oregon Virginia
Upload
Uploading 10 MB data from an instance in US
East region to US West region
Avg. result: 5sec

109. PUT/POST Optimization Test
Oregon Virginia
Upload
U
p
load
Uploading 10MB data from an instance in US
East region to the closest CloudFront location
Avg. result: 3.5sec
CloudFront

110. How to Improve Content Download Time
Even More?
Content Download
Index.jsp

111. With Amazon Route 53 Latency-based
Routing
Route 53

112. Latency-based Routing (LBR)
• Run multiple stacks of your application in different EC2 regions around
the world
• Create LBR records for each location and tag the location with geo
information
• Route 53 will route end users to the endpoint that provides the lowest
latency
112

113. LBR Benefits
• Better performance than running in a single region
• Improved reliability relative to running in a single region
• Easier implementation than traditional DNS solutions
• Much lower prices than traditional DNS solutions
113

114. LBR For End-Users

115. LBR For End-Users

116. CloudFront and Route 53
• Use CloudFront for dynamic content optimization
• Host your origin at multiple AWS locations (or data
centers)
– US
– Europe

117. CloudFront and Route 53
• Create Origin DNS records in Route 53 for each location
• Route 53 measures the latency between CloudFront and
all configured origins
• Route 53 resolves origin’s hostname to the closest
location
• Reduce content download time

118. LBR For End-Users

119. LBR For End-Users

120. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

121. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

122. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

123. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

124. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

125. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

126. Lower Latency with CloudFront and Route 53

136. After CloudFront Dynamic Content
Optimization = 555 ms

137. Example: somecompany.com
. sec

138. Design for Failure with CloudFront and Route 53
Route 53

139. Design for Failure
Normal interaction:
1. Users connect to
CloudFront
1. CloudFront connects to
Origin
Region
CloudFront

140. Design for Failure
• What happens if the origin fails to respond back
to CloudFront?
Region
CloudFront

141. Design for Failure
• With Amazon Route 53 you can health-check
your origin
Region
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check

142. Design for Failure
• Failures can be detected by Route 53 health checks
Region
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
CloudFront

143. Design for Failure
• The traffic shifts to the healthy instances or load balancers
instead
Region
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
CloudFront

144. Region 2
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
Region 1
Origin DNS Resolution Based
on Latency And Health
Checks
Can mix health check and
latency-based routing
Can apply the same logic to
multiregion deployments

145. Region 2
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
Region 1
Origin DNS Resolution Based
on Latency And Health
Checks
Users get connected to the
closest region if both
regions are healthy

146. Region 2
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
Region 1
Origin DNS Resolution Based
on Latency And Health
Checks
Route 53 detects failures
via health checks

147. Region 2
Route53
Health
Check
Health
Check
Region 1
Origin DNS Resolution Based
on Latency And Health
Checks
Users get connected to the
healthy regions if the
closest region is not
passing the health check

148. Design for Failure: Caching
• Caching improves performance
• Can also improve availability
• If your infrastructure is experiencing failure,
CloudFront can serve cached content instead of
5xx,4xx and etc

149. Design for Failure: Caching
• Going back to “cache as much as you can”
• More caching = better availability

150. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
User Request A

151. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
User Request A

152. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
User Request A

153. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
Image
User Request A

154. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
Image
Image
User Request A

155. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Image
User Request B

156. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
User Request B

157. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get Image
User Request B

158. Design for Failure: Serve Cached Content
Origin
Edge
Location
Get Image
Get ImageImage
User Request B

159. Summary
• Accelerate all your content with CloudFront
• Use CloudFront with Route 53 latency-based
routing to improve your performance
• Design for failure with CloudFront and Amazon
Route 53

160. © 2014 Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. May not be copied, modified, or distributed in whole or in part without the express consent of Amazon.com, Inc.
Dynamic Content Acceleration:
Lightning-Fast Web Apps with
Amazon CloudFront and
Amazon Route 53
Parviz Deyhim, Solutions Architect
March 26, 2014
Thank you!