If you want a non-patched server, built for this task, consider pgeodns:
http://geo.bitnames.com/
It is used by svn.apache.org, CPAN, the NTP pool, etc.
I personally have my doubts about any value created for static pages doing this though, there are relatively cheap CDNs on the market now, rather than trying to find VMs in a dozen countries.
In addition you have to be careful about services like OpenDNS which for example, made svn.apache.org always resolve to the EU even for users in the US, due to how their DNS anycast is setup.
> I personally have my doubts about any value created for static pages doing this though, there are relatively cheap CDNs on the market now, rather than trying to find VMs in a dozen countries.
Please share the options.
My scenario is that I transfer around 800MB in static content (images, CSS and JS) per month. I'd simply want that part CDN'd.
I used to use SimpleCDN but found them too expensive after they changed their pricing model.
The cost of 2 additional Linodes would be (2 x $19.95) = $39.90 per month.
My bandwidth usage isn't so great as to make the cost of an off-the-shelf CDN solution beneficial, yet it's great enough that a couple of Linodes would make a visible speed difference to the 100,000 unique visitors per month that visit my site from North America.
To my mind there is a gap between small site and large site into which running a couple of VMs to provide a cheap CDN is an advantage.
Although if you can show me cheaper drop-in (pass-through) alternatives to SimpleCDN then I'm very eager to hear about them.
Sounds like you're looking for CloudFront. I run a site with similar usage to yours (at least on the upload side), and I see about $6 in S3 charges and another $8 for CloudFront each month.
As the grandparent said, I just can't see why anybody would spend even a minute thinking about rolling their own CDN on their own servers for anything but the most extreme use cases. It's a solved problem, and it's ridiculously cheap.
I got my numbers wrong thanks to an early morning typo... 800GB bandwidth per month, not 800MB.
Of the options recommended:
Max CDN = $39.95 per month deal (1TB), usually $99.95 = Same price as DIY on the deal, or more expensive normally.
SoftLayer = $140 per month (1TB) = More expensive.
CacheFly = $299 per month (2TB) = More expensive and have to upload files to server.
Rackspace CloudFiles = $176 per month (based on current 800GB bandwidth alone - other costs not yet factored in) = More expensive.
Amazon CloudFront = $131 per month (based on current 800GB bandwidth alone - other costs not yet factored in) = More expensive and you have to upload files to the server.
So yeah... DIY looks substantially cheaper. There's still a big gap between small site and large site. For a few days of my time I can easily save myself a lot of potential cost as well as speed up my website. I can't really see why I wouldn't set up my own CDN.
When you value your time at $0 lots of things seem cheaper. For $131 a month on CloudFront you get a better CDN than you are going to build and avoid all the sysadmin headaches, syncing headaches, etc.
But the $19.95 linodes have a 200GB/month limit - so you'd need at an absolute minimum of 4 to do 800GB/month, and given you won't have perfect geographical spread, about 6-8 is perhaps more realistic. So you'd be looking at least $120 for the VPS, plus the time/hassle of setting this up and managing/monitoring it.
So it's just as expensive, and there's no way the DIY model would be cheaper in terms of TCO.
I already host with Linode and they pool the bandwidth allowance for all Linodes in your account.
As I've already got nicely layered VMs some have a totally unused allowance. For example my MySQL nodes only transfer traffic on the private network at Linode and so both the master server and slave use virtually zilch of their bandwidth allowance.
I'm fairly sure that most Linode users with more than 1 node will be using only a fraction of their allowance.
My total pooled bandwidth allowance with Linode is close to 4TB, of which in total I'm using only 1TB with 800GB being static content.
My point was simple: The DIY solution with Linode looks to be a really good idea as I already am with them and placing CDN servers in other datacenters should mean good routing internally within their network (or peers) as well as being extremely cheap.
I have yet to be shown that for my scenario there is a cheaper option and that this is solved. I am very happy to be proven wrong as it will save me some work, but so far DIY is winning.
We were doing the same, if not more, at massify. We used Panther Express which doesn't bill on amount, but instead on how much of their pipe you are using.
(Amazon CloudFiles too, but again, you need to upload files to them).
In addition, if you are just using GeoDNS to load balancing between two US east/west locations, the big wins with GeoDNS are really about users in Australia, Asia or Europe, for closer localities, the only way really is to use an Anycast base CDN, because the odds of an ISPs DNS servers not being close enough for GeoDNS are far too high.
When we searched, we explored options like panther CDN, voxel and edgecast. After some testing and negotiation, we found that Edgecast CDN offered the best performance for the buck. I suggest contacting them to see what they can offer.
VMs have dropped in price dramatically over the last couple of months. You can find 128MB/256MB nodes for less than $5/mo. You just have to do a bit of digging ;)
For part 2, we intend on showing how the CDN can cache dynamic content, not just static files. As a matter of fact, it's just one or two simple changes in Varnish VCL functions.
It is used by svn.apache.org, CPAN, the NTP pool, etc.
I personally have my doubts about any value created for static pages doing this though, there are relatively cheap CDNs on the market now, rather than trying to find VMs in a dozen countries.
In addition you have to be careful about services like OpenDNS which for example, made svn.apache.org always resolve to the EU even for users in the US, due to how their DNS anycast is setup.