“You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” said Abraham Lincoln. Remember, also, not to believe everything you hear about the Internet.  At Teridion, we debunk common Internet performance myths every day. Instead, we provide a reality check.

In case you missed it, read our blog series to learn why you and your customers don’t have to settle for slow and inadequate performance.

• Internet Myth #1: Speed of Light Explains Poor Performance
• Internet Myth #2: Building Regional POPs  is the Best Way to Improve Global Internet Performance
• Internet Myth #3: Key to Great Performance is Lax Security
• Internet Myth #4: Upload Performance Always Stinks
• Internet Myth #5: Internet Performance is Good Enough
• Internet Myth #6: Chinese Internet Performance Problems Cannot Be Fixed
• Internet Myth #7: The Internet was Designed for Optimal Performance
• Internet Myth #8: The Internet Uses BGP Routing to Find the Fastest Path
• Internet Myth #9: Monitoring Can Solve Internet Backbone Problems
• Internet Myth #10: Putting Servers Close to End Users Solves Performance Problems

Continuing to believe in these Internet performance myths comes at the cost of a consistently great,

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Posted by Elad Rave on September 12th, 2017

Reality: Server proximity can help to some degree, but can be both costly and complex–reducing business agility.

You’ve worked hard to develop a cutting-edge application, but sadly, some of your users are experiencing compromised performance. The first thing that comes to mind is building or renting a closer POP to serve users from within their region–thereby avoiding a perilous journey over a long stretch of the internet.

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Posted by Elad Rave on August 23rd, 2017

Reality: Monitoring helps diagnose problems, but doesn’t solve them.

There’s a reason the Internet is often represented as a cloud: we can’t see what’s going on inside this network of networks. The advent of sophisticated monitoring tools gave network operations groups alerts and the data to diagnose what might be causing poor network performance. The most common culprits include:

• Congestion: Traffic jams on the Internet are inevitable.

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Posted by Elad Rave on August 9th, 2017

Image Credit: dbiaginx / Creative Commons

Reality: Internet routing using BGP does not follow the shortest path!

The core protocol that governs how traffic is routed long distances across the Internet is called Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This protocol was formalized back in 1989 and only makes one decision – which ISP (called an Autonomous System or AS) to hand traffic off to next.

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Posted by Elad Rave on July 19th, 2017

Reality: The Internet was built for reliability and resilience, not performance.

The genesis of the modern day Internet started out as a US Dept. of Defense research project in the 1960’s called Arpanet. Arpanet was a packet-switching network designed to connect university research computers together with robustness and survivability vs. performance. In 1982, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) was developed to transfer data reliably between these research computers.

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Posted by Elad Rave on July 7th, 2017

Egnyte is a SaaS provider of enterprise content collaboration and governance that helps thousands of businesses by enabling them to connect, protect, and unlock value from all their content without compromising security or governance. IDC recently ranked Egnyte as the fastest file sharing provider due in part to Teridion Virtual Networks.

Despite multiple POPs, customer experience was not optimal

As Egnyte’s business took off, so did its global footprint.

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Posted by Elad Rave on June 15th, 2017

Welcome to the sixth posting of Teridion’s weekly series debunking Internet performance myths. This week’s myth is: “Chinese Internet performance problems cannot be fixed.”

Reality: Great SaaS application performance in China is definitely possible!

China is a massive Internet market for SaaS vendors with over 700M users vs 280M in US. Yet, SaaS vendors struggle to deliver outstanding user experiences in China, as detailed on Quora and by The Atlantic.

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Posted by Elad Rave on June 11th, 2017

Upthere is a cloud storage service designed to be the one home for your personal data — photos, videos, music, and documents. With Upthere Home you can use any device to save, view, search, organize, and share anything. Upthere’s mission is to deliver the world’s best personal storage experience by giving their customers the fastest possible uploads, downloads and streams.

Internet Backbone congestion impacted the customer experience

As Upthere expanded its service,

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Posted by Elad Rave on June 7th, 2017

Welcome to the fifth posting of Teridion’s weekly series debunking Internet performance myths. This week’s myth is: “Internet performance is good enough”  

Reality: poor Internet performance is a huge drag on the SaaS industry

The underlying reasons for poor Internet performance have to do with protocol and design decisions made over 40 years ago which optimize the Internet for resilience and reliability over speed and consistency. SaaS vendors in particular are at the mercy of Internet Backbone congestion because much of their content is personalized and therefore uncacheable.

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Posted by Elad Rave on June 6th, 2017

Thru Inc is an Irving, Texas-based enterprise file sync and share company with a global customer base. Blazing fast service – especially for file uploads – is a key reason customers choose Thru.

Poor Internet performance, bad customer experience

However, as Thru and many other SaaS providers have discovered, delivering a fast experience to global, isn’t always a straightforward journey. Why? Because SaaS applications have no control or visibility over where and how their traffic is routed over the Internet.

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Posted by Elad Rave on May 23rd, 2017