Hi Guys,
I have just received a quote from our Drupal developers stating that it will take in the region of 16 hours to set up Cloudfront for our website. I am wondering if you guys can give me an opinion on whether you think this is reasonable?
I can only imagine that they are referring to a 'push' scenario with 16 hours - given the numerous 5 minute guides I am finding on the net. We really only need a 'pull' solution - something I understand is much less complicated to set up.
The reasons for their seemingly high quote is that they need to test JS files that need to be excluded from the CDN. They have also quoted 8 hours for Cloudflare stating it is much easier to set up and integrates better with Drupal.
Would appreciate your feedback on this.
Cheers,
Jason
Comments
Not sure
Definitely: Ask them for a breakdown of that 16 hours. If they say they need to test JS files, ask how many files and how long each one takes to test. They have to have pulled that estimate from somewhere.
My first reaction is to be slightly surprised, I have to say. It probably does take 5-10 minutes to set up an Amazon CF distribution, then another 5 minutes (idle time for you) for AWS to enable the new distribution. Then set up a CNAME on that if you wish. Then install the CDN module, and make sure it's all working with your new CNAME. There are a few tricks to ensuring that search engines don't spider your CDN domain instead, because you want that subdomain to remain free of cookies on the end users computer, but none of that is hard either.
What they say about JS files isn't totally without cause. Things can go wrong if some JS files are aggregated, but that is more the issue than whether they are served through the CDN. That said, the CDN module / the aggregation settings in core (for Drupal 7) take care of most cases of this for you. If your site had some very complex Ajax JS in it that is not "out of the box" then that would need checking to make sure it's not been aggregated.
As for CloudFlare, if they are wanting to use them as a CDN for serving static resources only, then: (i) the work on the Drupal end is identical to using AWS CF. Therefore the same JS files would need checking to ensure they aren't aggregated; (ii) the work on the CDN's end is, IMHO, harder work. That is because AWS know that people want to use them only for serving static resources, whereas CloudFlare try to steer you towards serving your entire site through their network. There's a bit of fiddling around with DNS configurations to make CloudFlare only serve on a static subdomain.
I'd definitely ask them for clarification. If they're right, there are specific reasons why this complex for your site. They should be willing to elaborate.
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