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Hosting at Amazon S3 (21)

11-04-2014 12:38 PM #1 artsifin (Member)
Hosting at Amazon S3

Hey!

Okay, so I finally got my first lander done, as per instructions from Zeno, and after considerable struggle with Amazon S3, the website is now live.

Now, I chose the Frankfurt server, as I'll be flashing this site in Finland. However, the Webpagetest.org tells me the site loads a whopping 2,7 seconds or something like that. That's ridiculous.

So, now that I have the stuff on S3, I should activate CloudFare as CDN? Was that correct?


And another question still about tracking... I registered for Voluum, but is there some sort of guide somewhere on setting it up? I have only 1 lander right now to keep things simple, and I would like to put on basic tracking. So, that involves putting the tracker on the CTA button, yes? And I need to have the tracker be communicating with my CPA network and traffic source (Juicy Ads)?

Or is Prosper202 better?

I'm in that wonderful state of utter confusion right now, so insights are appreciated!

EDIT: A new test tells me the site would load in 1,227 seconds, it has 2 requests and the size of the site is 63kB (so, not quite as bad as the first time around.)

11-04-2014 01:00 PM #2 vision (AMC Alumnus)

"Or is Prosper202 better?"

Stick to Voluum.

The voluum knowledgebase has info. on setting up campaigns and traffic sources:
http://feedback.Voluum.com/knowledgebase

Google: voluum guide
There's 2 guides to look at (both from STM forum members): charlesngo and iamattila

11-04-2014 01:06 PM #3 artsifin (Member)

Awesome! Thanks vision! Just jumping into Charles Ngos tutorial right now

EDIT: Oh, and in case someone else struggles with the same stuff, here's the tutorial from Charles: http://charlesngo.com/Voluum/

EDIT 2: Once again great many thanks to Zeno for that Muse LP video! Saved me a LOT of headache.

11-04-2014 10:29 PM #4 zeno (Administrator)

When you say you chose the Frankfurt server, what do you mean? Is that the region you chose for your S3 bucket?

If you're using Amazon as a CDN provider then be aware the bucket location is irrelevant.

The point of a CDN is to distribute the content globally so wherever it begins, it doesn't stay there long - it propagates everywhere.

The way Amazon works is you use two services of theirs:

Amazon S3 - this is for file storage.
Amazon CloudFront - this is their CDN service. It pulls files from your S3 account.

CloudFlare =/= CloudFront, they are different services owned by different companies.

Here is a decent guide to setting up on Amazon - http://www.michaelgallego.fr/blog/20...the-right-way/

Note that in that article you can skip the "Setting the bucket to accept a static website" part.

11-05-2014 07:19 AM #5 artsifin (Member)

Zeno, yeah they made me choose some location when I was setting up the S3, so I picked the Frankfurt one for the bukkakes.

Is there any way to actually test whether the CDN is working or not? I've tested my site on webpagetest.org, and they seem to be saying that there's not "effective use of CDN" (I've got the big X on it). When I'm testing the site on my browser, however, it loads just about instantaneously. I mean as in LIGHTNING FAST. So, I would assume it's working already, but I'd like to be sure

Next thing for me to figure out is how much they charge for using these services, as I don't want the service to be interrupted at a later date all of a sudden

11-06-2014 12:05 AM #6 zeno (Administrator)

The URLs you are using for static content will be of the form abcde12345.cloudfront.net.

If they are, you are using the CloudFront CDN.

If they are not, you aren't.

The settings for your CloudFront distribution should also be on use all edge locations.

11-06-2014 02:45 PM #7 artsifin (Member)

Zeno, are you sure? I believe I read somewhere that you could use your normal urls even with CloudFront, kind of similar than the case with S3.

11-06-2014 06:02 PM #8 zeno (Administrator)

I'm not sure what you mean?

The content you want to load from the CloudFront CDN has to point there some how.

Either you use abcde.cloudfront.net links, or you use another domain and have it point to abcde.cloudfront.net in your DNS settings. There are no sensible alternatives.

11-06-2014 06:30 PM #9 artsifin (Member)

Ah, yes! That's what I meant.

I have a domain I use, and I created the CNAME thingy to point to S3. I'm not sure if that's enough, though. Their Java-based testing tool keeps on insulting me for whatever reason, so I'm not sure if it works or not. The sites load super fast, though.

11-06-2014 10:13 PM #10 zeno (Administrator)

You will need to do the following:

1. Set up an S3 bucket, will need to add bucket policy and whatnot, see link I posted earlier.

2. Set up a CloudFront distribution with the origin set as the S3 bucket so that it pulls content from there.

3. If you want to use your own domain name you will need to CNAME e.g. cdn.domain.com to abcde.cloudfront.net.

If you CNAME to the S3 address you skip CloudFront entirely and this will not benefit your load speeds. Also, be aware that if you use cdn.domain.com you can't use SSL. This isn't a big problem, but if you ever need to run a lander with HTTPS you will need to use the raw CloudFront address.

Most websites that you'll encounter - even enterprise brands - just use the CloudFront address to avoid mixed-content errors and SSL problems, and cdn.domain.com will add a small amount of time to content loading by all 'cold' users due to the extra DNS lookup.

11-07-2014 08:13 AM #11 artsifin (Member)

Is that so? Okay, well I need to have another look at this stuff to get the CloudFront working as well...

Somehow I got the impression, that I should first put the CNAME on S3, and then the CloudFront would work from there. I might as well use the CloudFront url if that's the better option.

11-11-2014 05:27 AM #12 aff_pablo (Member)

Hi, artsifin. Zeno is right. Cloudfront pull the S3 containt and distribute in several servers around the world, so, for someone to access the content by near server, is necessary this person enter cloudfront url. If you want use your own url, you need pointing your domain cname to cloudfront distribution.

11-11-2014 09:37 AM #13 omrikos (Member)

So wait, you mean that if you use the s3 bucket url after you connected it to cloudfront as your lander for example: xxxxx.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com it stil won't work as a CDN lander?

11-11-2014 10:33 PM #14 zeno (Administrator)

No, it won't.

To be explicitly clear: xxxxx.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com resolves to a S3 bucket on a single server in a single location.

blahblah.cloudfront.net resolves to the nearest CDN server on the planet.

If you have been using xxxxx.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com, then you have not been using a CDN at all.

11-12-2014 05:09 AM #15 aff_pablo (Member)

S3 is a storage service, only. Cloudfront is a distribution service. So, you need to configure cloudfront to distribute the files that you have storaged on your S3 bucket.

11-12-2014 07:31 AM #16 omrikos (Member)

What url do I need to use in cloudfront to make it happen? the domain they have there is giving me a "Access Denied" page. What I am missing?

11-12-2014 08:16 AM #17 zeno (Administrator)

You likely haven't configured a bucket policy correctly.

By default S3 buckets are not open to the public.

http://www.michaelgallego.fr/blog/20...the-right-way/

11-13-2014 12:32 AM #18 omrikos (Member)

The S3 bucket functions correctly and I use it as is currently as lander with success. The issue is using the CloudFront service. I created the distribution and pointed it to the bucket endpoint as in the guide. But I understood from your posts that this is still not enough? What extra step is missing?

11-13-2014 01:29 AM #19 constantin (Member)

just make sure you're using the cloudfront link pointing to your CNAME, not the s3 link and of course test it before going live.

11-13-2014 02:15 AM #20 omrikos (Member)

Can I do it without using CNAME? Can I just use the cloudfront link as my url?

11-13-2014 05:03 AM #21 zeno (Administrator)

Quote Originally Posted by omrikos View Post
Can I do it without using CNAME? Can I just use the cloudfront link as my url?
Yes, this is what we were saying earlier.

If you want to use CloudFront there are two options:

1. Use xxxxxx.cloudfront.net URLs.

2. Use domain.com URLs where you own domain.com and have CNAME'd it to xxxxxx.cloudfront.net

If you are not doing 1 or 2, you are not using CloudFront.


If your CloudFront URLs are currently not working, it is likely due to the CloudFront distribution being incorrectly configured.

Again, follow this guide: http://www.michaelgallego.fr/blog/20...the-right-way/

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