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Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

blog.jonlu.ca

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Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#11

Post by TekMol »

progval wrote: post #10
TekMol wrote: post #8

I don't buy this. Hacker News is one of the most responsive websites I know. And it is run on a single server somewhere in the USA. While I am in Europe. If you have users in Sydney, Australia ... ... you are floored at 104ms of latency for your request When I open AirBnB with a clean browser cache, it takes several seconds until I see something useful. Those 104ms of latency don't make a dent. Reddit takes over 5 se…

Browsing HN only needs one round-trip (fetch the HTML), maybe two if you don't have it cached (fetch the CSS). Many apps need more round-trips, by loading assets sequentially. For example: fetch the HTML, then the JS, then the JS downloads its config, then the JS fetches some assets. Latency accumulates with every round-trip.

No, HN is not just one request, it is 7.

And no, latency does not accumulate.

Because the browser requests assets in parallel as it loads the html.

Also, assets can easily be routed through a CDN.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#12

Post by r24y »

This article brought to mind a different but related scenario. I live on an island that was recently affected by a typhoon. Internet speeds are usually pretty good, but in the aftermath of the storm cable internet has been up-and-down depending on the day, and the cell towers are very spotty. I've found that most modern apps depend on a high-speed connection, and give a very poor experience otherwise. Of course this seems obvious in hindsight, but it's a different experience living through it.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#13

Post by senttoschool »

TekMol wrote: post #11
progval wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing HN only needs one round-trip (fetch the HTML), maybe two if you don't have it cached (fetch the CSS). Many apps need more round-trips, by loading assets sequentially. For example: fetch the HTML, then the JS, then the JS downloads its config, then the JS fetches some assets. Latency accumulates with every round-trip.

No, HN is not just one request, it is 7. And no, latency does not accumulate. Because the browser requests assets in parallel as it loads the html. Also, assets can easily be routed through a CDN.

True and not true.

In modern apps, there's often additional assets loaded from Javscript calling endpoints or calling for more assets.

If you do server side rendering, there are usually fewer roundtrips.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#14

Post by bigbacaloa »

TekMol wrote: post #8

I don't buy this. Hacker News is one of the most responsive websites I know. And it is run on a single server somewhere in the USA. While I am in Europe. If you have users in Sydney, Australia ... ... you are floored at 104ms of latency for your request When I open AirBnB with a clean browser cache, it takes several seconds until I see something useful. Those 104ms of latency don't make a dent. Reddit takes over 5 se…

HN is an old fashioned text based thing with no bells or whistles whatsoever. Of course it's responsive.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#15

Post by samwillis »

TekMol wrote: post #11
progval wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing HN only needs one round-trip (fetch the HTML), maybe two if you don't have it cached (fetch the CSS). Many apps need more round-trips, by loading assets sequentially. For example: fetch the HTML, then the JS, then the JS downloads its config, then the JS fetches some assets. Latency accumulates with every round-trip.

No, HN is not just one request, it is 7. And no, latency does not accumulate. Because the browser requests assets in parallel as it loads the html. Also, assets can easily be routed through a CDN.

Latency absolutely does accumulate for code as the parent described that cannot make a request until the previous one has returned (images linked from css files for example, or a spa with poorly chunked code). There is a lot of that code out there. "Modern" tooling and practices reduce that, but it not a solved problem for the majority of legacy code.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#16

Post by resonious »

progval wrote: post #10
TekMol wrote: post #8

I don't buy this. Hacker News is one of the most responsive websites I know. And it is run on a single server somewhere in the USA. While I am in Europe. If you have users in Sydney, Australia ... ... you are floored at 104ms of latency for your request When I open AirBnB with a clean browser cache, it takes several seconds until I see something useful. Those 104ms of latency don't make a dent. Reddit takes over 5 se…

Browsing HN only needs one round-trip (fetch the HTML), maybe two if you don't have it cached (fetch the CSS). Many apps need more round-trips, by loading assets sequentially. For example: fetch the HTML, then the JS, then the JS downloads its config, then the JS fetches some assets. Latency accumulates with every round-trip.

Do you think that's why Reddit takes 5 seconds to show a cookie banner?

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#17

Post by quickthrower2 »

TekMol wrote: post #8

I don't buy this. Hacker News is one of the most responsive websites I know. And it is run on a single server somewhere in the USA. While I am in Europe. If you have users in Sydney, Australia ... ... you are floored at 104ms of latency for your request When I open AirBnB with a clean browser cache, it takes several seconds until I see something useful. Those 104ms of latency don't make a dent. Reddit takes over 5 se…

I think cloudflare is in front of HN these days

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#18

Post by js2 »

I've been doing this long enough that I remember when all the big web sites were hosted in California. In fact, my company had its web farm in Sunnyvale which we managed over frame relay from Atlanta.

Whenever I'd visit the west coast, I was shocked how much faster the web seemed.

So I sympathize with the sentiment.

Thing is though, the entire web feels pretty sluggish to me these days. And that's with us-east-1 less than 300 miles away from me. Because most web sites aren't slow due to where they're hosted, but rather because of how bloated with crap most of them have become.

Re: Noticing when an app is only hosted in us-east-1

#20

Post by TekMol »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #17
TekMol wrote: post #8

I don't buy this. Hacker News is one of the most responsive websites I know. And it is run on a single server somewhere in the USA. While I am in Europe. If you have users in Sydney, Australia ... ... you are floored at 104ms of latency for your request When I open AirBnB with a clean browser cache, it takes several seconds until I see something useful. Those 104ms of latency don't make a dent. Reddit takes over 5 se…

I think cloudflare is in front of HN these days

Have you thought about testing that assumption?
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