Hi Bob,
| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: WWWombat | | I can't help but feel that having any type of quota associated with a prioritisation-level is the wrong thing to do. Surely "gold-plated" should always be higher priority than "silver", no matter how much has been used? |
It's not quite as simple as that unfortunately. |
As you point out below, something funny is happening... perhaps it isn't quite complex enough either
😉| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: WWWombat | | The reason I'm a bit leery is, as dirtymonkey pointed out, the CDN is gradually being used as a cache for more than just multimedia content, and is now including many common "small files" such as javascript and even text content, to aid in the speed of loading of sites to end-users. In the long run I'd rather that PN's traffic management was clever enough to allow the "small files" through at the "Gold" level to match standard "Browsing & Email" |
AFAIK there is Ellacoya hardware capable of identifying traffic by MIME type, but we don't own any of it so our platform isn't currently capable of doing this. Personally, I didn't think there was much in the way of text/css hosted with Akamai/Limelight networks? Even if there is, the platform is designed to perform well enough for it not to be a significant problem. To further confuse matters, we never hit capacity in the Gold-Plated queue whilst the problem was happening so I've a snaking suspicion something else might be at play? |
Then that is the worrying aspect... just what was causing people to fail to view BBC pages? I assume this will be investigated...
I did a quick look at the BBC News homepage. It looks like there is a dependency on Akamai for 3 images, and one javascript file. There are plenty of other Javascript and CSS files that could be offloaded to Akamai, but don't appear to be.
Ebay has offloaded both Javascript & CSS files to Akamai.
And I know of a number of fairly plain websites that have started to offload content onto CDNs, but I couldn't say it was Akamai or Limelight in particular. I've even started investigating it myself (via vps.net). Vps.net themselves said "We believe this is a killer combo, host the site on the Cloud and the static content on the CDN We are serving Images, JS/jQuery and some other scripts for the CDN at the moment "
| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: WWWombat | In the meantime, I'd suggest a different wording:
<snip>
|
Based on what I've written above, I don't think we need to include reference to text/css etc. I'd consider this more a problem than a design feature. |
OK. I'll leave that to your judgement.
| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: WWWombat | The extra things I'd suggest are:- The Traffic Prioritisation page mentions the two download categories, but makes no mention of the CDN being impacted. It is only if you follow the link to the "download servers" page do you see the CDN impact (but why would you, if you were only browsing the BBC website?). I think it should be clearer on the main page.
|
How about an asterisk or similar next to Web browsing in the table that links to a caveat along the lines of:
[quote author="Proposed text"]* Please note that some browsing activities may call on content that is hosted by Download Sites & Servers and will therefore be in the 'Gold Plated' queue on certain account types. |
That seems OK but, as the CDN traffic is classified under "servers" alone, I'd make the text parts of the link just "Download Servers".
| Quote from: Bob |
The Download Site/Server info in hyperlinked in varous places on that page. Perhaps we can add a caveat similar to the above under the 'Please be aware that:' bit? |
That looks to be the right kind of place for that.
| Quote from: Bob |
| Quote from: WWWombat | - Back on the Traffic Prioritisation page, the only reference to "gold-plated" is to say "*Gold Plated traffic (and some Gold Traffic) may be rate limited to prevent impact on interactive/Gold traffic at busy times. See Download Sites & servers to find out more about this."
Unfortunately, there is nothing explained about the gold-plated rate limits on the linked page.
|
Perhaps refer customers to the Download Sites & servers *and* Expected Speeds page?
Keen not to go into the specifics about queue weighting as it's subject to change and isn't easily explained (or understood).
|
I guess the problem I have is that "gold-plated" is specially highlighted in the list, and you are told to look elsewhere for an explanation... but there is none that I can find. I don't think the solution is to point at extra links that don't have the explanation either.
Strictly speaking, there isn't actually an explanation of any of the other levels either, and we're left to make the rational judgement that, say, silver is higher priority than bronze etc.
If "gold-plated" can be understood by a similar rational judgement, then the solution is easy... don't highlight it at all, and don't explain it. But it doesn't sound like it is a simple judgement.
If you aren't keen to describe the tech detail behind the "gold-plated" class, is there a way that people can at least understand what the impact of it is? Does it mean that traffic is sometimes equivalent to "gold", and sometimes worse than "bronze"? Are the rates & limits that apply within an end-user's control (eg counters associated with my account), or are they pooled across many users?
Or alternatively, perhaps the explanation is to say what the special rules prevent. For example "Gold-plated is a priority level between gold and silver that works, for the most part, as gold. When the network becomes loaded, some/all/excess Gold-plated traffic gets treated similar to bronze, and is more likely to be dropped". Or maybe the distinction only appears in abnormal circumstances.
I don't know what "gold-plated" is, so my examples and suggestions are a bit wooly. Sorry...
Plusnet Customer
Using FTTC since 2011. Currently on 80/20 Unlimited Fibre Extra.
