"We need a temporary solution in two months":
Our customer had had problems with their international webshop
for some time. The response times for clients from different
continents were too long which created a bad user experience. As
the company was to expand in China their problems grew even worse.
What they were looking for was a quick fix that would solve these
problems temporarily and a pre-study that would indicate what the
optimal long term solution would be.
A remote controlled cache hub was the answer and our analysis
cut budget costs
It's always a challenge to accept an assignment where there's an
extreme shortage of time. And since a billion Chinese can't be
wrong we'd be certain to get a fair verdict. During the project we
worked closely with our customer's internet department. To solve
the problem temporarily we used an open source solution using Squid
technology. We created a remote controlled cache hub that was
placed in Hong Kong and managed to shorten the response periods in
good time before the China campaign. At the start of our pre-study
everyone was convinced that the best solution would be to build and
run your own system based on open source techniques. We used
KeyNote's measurement services to collect data over a period of
time and from all over the globe. With that data we conducted pilot
studies where we tested alternate solutions. Our conclusion was
uncontestable; considering the demands from our client they should
buy a complete solution from Akamai. Their CTO was very pleased
when we presented our results: "It is not often you see such a well
substantiated analysis where it shows that the most powerful
solution is also the most economical." By following our suggestions
our customer got a solution that exceeded their goals and demands
at a cost that was well under the estimated budget.