Control panel, serving static files via CDN

AdamM

Hi
As everyone knows, the control panel is currently only installed on one server.
Many of us may have clients from all over the world, so this raises the problem of slow website performance with the control panel.
The problem could be solved by using a CDN to handle the control panel's static files, css, js etc.

The operation appears to be simple, requiring integration by the Enhance team.

At the CDN provider, e.g. Bunny.net, we create a "pull zone" with the origin url of the control panel, example "cp.example.com"
Bunny.net creates a CNAME for us which will serve the CDN traffic, example. "cdn-bunny.cp.example.com"
Somewhere in the "Enhance" settings we change the URL for displaying static files from the default "cp.example.com"
to "cdn-bunny.cp.example.com"
The control panel changes the addresses of the static files to CDN

Now, for example, the file cp.example.com/static/js/main.163c2463.js is served by CDN "cdn-bunny.cp.example.com/static/js/main.163c2463.js" allowing a reduced worldwide delay and use of the cache.

Is this a good idea? I would use
Example my "main.163c2463.js" file weighs 585 kB, its a lot.

Regards

ss88us

I'm not sure if this would be a benefit.

If by your definition about large files sizes and slow loading, your CP is in America, but your client is in Japan. It will always be slow because when they need to 'action' anything (i.e. create a website, database, email, etc) it will always be slow regardless of a CDN because the central server is in America.

Making sure these files are cached by the browser solves the issue after the first page load.

Isaia-Arknet_PTY_LTD

add to .htaccess

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/webp "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType video/mpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
</IfModule>

Isaia-Arknet_PTY_LTD

The above can be added to any website hosted as it helps with compression and expire 🙂

manu

I think while CDN is a good idea for static files. The ability to load-balance the Control Panel itself will be amazing. Say for example we can have the CP replicated in a couple of instances so that we can make sure that the CP loads faster and the cp-license is authenticated with the help of the Load-balancer IPs or some different way.

I can for example have one instance in US, one in Europe etc depending upon the audience geography. This will also solve the availability of the CP problem or any other issues with the instance as even if one instance goes down, the other instances can serve the CP.

Load balancing the CP I feel is critical as the CP UI is central to everything we have to do and the CP has the ability to connect and communicate with all the servers in our server pool

AdamM

manu
Yes. I agree. CP should be fault tolerant and use load balancing on at least 2 servers.
This is critical. The lack of CP action will stop all business activity.

prasad0889

Extremely good point @manu. @Adam and @Darren, can this be achieved?
There will be a time when a web hosting grows the physical server even with 64 cores will short!

Zoinkies

Or, you could have a Enhance license for each region, and have a control panel per region.

Then, you have a local Enhance CP, which is fast, and separated from other regions for security.

prasad0889

Zoinkies Managing 3-4 enhance panels will become difficult plus you will need to create packages everywhere. Plus if you have clients with service in two or three locations, you will have to tell them to access different panels, and it will still not be fault tolerant. Instead if the CP is load balanced, it will be better!

Zoinkies

prasad0889 Totally agree, but at the moment this is the best situation I feel?

AdamM

Zoinkies This is not a very useful solution for me. This generates many additional problems.
It's strange that the Enhance team didn't take care of that from the beginning. After all, the main idea of Enhance is clustering.
@Adam

Darren

Depending on your client base, something you might want to consider is having separate Enhance clusters/installs per region. E.g. an EU location, with Control Panel, app/mail/NS/backup located there, then similarly for the US/Americas you'd create a new cluster with its own CP server, app servers etc there. Likewise for the rest of the world.

It really depends on how your clients are using your services for the most part. Downside with this at the moment is there is no automatic way to transfer between <-> Enhance clusters, but it is something we hope to add to the roadmap soon.

Adrien

Darren Hello Darren. Thanks for sharing this. This is very new to me, and honestly, I would not like to manage multiple Enhance panels for different regions.

Since day one, I thought we had to have one panel for the entire cluster, no matter the region. This new way of doing it is troublesome, but if that's how to build multiple areas, please let me know clearly, and I shall re-work my setup plans.

Thank you.