©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

RULES DRIVEN DELIVERYWHEN A URL IS NOT ENOUGH

Guy Podjarny (@guypod)

CTO, Web Experience, Akamai

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

The URL:

Uniform Resource LocatorConsistently points to the same resource on the web

(for a reasonable period of time)

And Caching relies on that.

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

A Modern Dynamic Page changes content…

- Over short time spans (Highly Dynamic Content)- Per client location (Geo-Targeting)- Per client device (Redirect to “m.”, RESS)- Per Browser Capabilities (e.g. WebP support)- If the user is or isn’t logged in (Access-Controlled content)- Per the user’s preferences or History (Personalization)- …

We Need Something Better

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

We’re already doing something better… at the origin.

We need to…- Structure our delivery definitions as rules

- Reusable, hierarchal units, each defining delivery/caching criteria and behavior

- Push the rules to the CDN Edge- To enable offload & improve performance

Nginx

Apache

Varnish

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

Akamai Property Manager: Rules Driven Delivery on Edge

Criteria: When to Apply it?

Behavior: What to Do?

Rule Hierarchy

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

Simple MD&R

Detect Mobile Devices

Redirect to “m.” subdomain

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

Complete MD&R

Support “See Full Site” Cookie/Query Override

Tell Proxies not to cache redirect

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

WebP Delivery Only apply to image paths

Accept Header Negotiation

Prefix path with /webp/(also updates cache key)

Mark downstream cache as private

Only apply to image paths

Accept Header Negotiation

Prefix path with /webp/(also updates cache key)

Mark downstream cache as private

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

“Key” Header – Granular Downstream Caching

Examples:- Key: user-agent;s="MSIE”

- User-Agent header contains “MSIE”- Key: Accept;p=”image/webp”

- Accept header as an item called “image/webp”- Key: cookie;n;w=”flagged”

- The cookie header does NOT contain the word “flagged”

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

Override Origin Location

Adaptive Delivery/RESSDetect Mobile

Devices

Cache By Origin

Adaptive Delivery RESS

Change Cache Key

Forward Device to Origin

©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM

Summary

- A URL is no longer enough- Delivery should be thought of as Rules

- We’re partly doing it, but need to structure it better

- Rules should be pushed to the Edge- To keep getting value from your CDNs and Caching proxies

- Flexible Caching is critical- Currently in website-controlled cache, more broadly when Key arrives

- “Responsive & Fast” Book Plug!