1. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
RULES DRIVEN DELIVERY
WHEN A URL IS NOT ENOUGH
Guy Podjarny (@guypod)
CTO, Web Experience, Akamai

2. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
The URL:
Uniform Resource Locator
Consistently points to the same resource on the web
(for a reasonable period of time)
And Caching relies on that.

3. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
A Modern Dynamic Page changes content…
- Over short time spans (Highly Dynamic Content)
- Per client location (Geo-Targeting)
- Per client device (Redirect to “m.”, RESS)
- Per Browser Capabilities (e.g. WebP support)
- If the user is or isn’t logged in (Access-Controlled content)
- Per the user’s preferences or History (Personalization)
- …
We Need Something Better

4. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
We’re already doing something better… at the origin.
We need to…
- Structure our delivery definitions as rules
- Reusable, hierarchal units, each defining delivery/caching criteria and
behavior
- Push the rules to the CDN Edge
- To enable offload & improve performance
Nginx
Apache
Varnish

5. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
Akamai Property Manager: Rules Driven Delivery on Edge
Criteria:
When to Apply it?
Behavior:
What to Do?
Rule Hierarchy

6. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
Simple MD&R
Detect Mobile
Devices
Redirect to “m.”
subdomain

7. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
Complete MD&R
Support “See Full Site”
Cookie/Query Override
Tell Proxies not to
cache redirect

8. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
WebP Delivery Only apply to
image paths
Accept Header
Negotiation
Prefix path with /webp/
(also updates cache key)
Mark downstream
cache as private
Only apply to
image paths
Accept Header
Negotiation
Prefix path with /webp/
(also updates cache key)
Mark downstream
cache as private

9. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
“Key” Header – Granular Downstream Caching
Examples:
- Key: user-agent;s="MSIE”
- User-Agent header contains “MSIE”
- Key: Accept;p=”image/webp”
- Accept header as an item called “image/webp”
- Key: cookie;n;w=”flagged”
- The cookie header does NOT contain the word “flagged”

10. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
Override Origin
Location
Adaptive Delivery/RESS
Detect Mobile
Devices
Cache By
Origin
Adaptive Delivery RESS
Change Cache
Key
Forward Device to
Origin

11. ©2014 AkamaiFaster ForwardTM
Summary
- A URL is no longer enough
- Delivery should be thought of as Rules
- We’re partly doing it, but need to structure it better
- Rules should be pushed to the Edge
- To keep getting value from your CDNs and Caching proxies
- Flexible Caching is critical
- Currently in website-controlled cache, more broadly when Key arrives
- “Responsive & Fast” Book Plug!