Fastly Case Studies Filestack's Scalability and Security Enhancement with Fastly

	Filestack's Scalability and Security Enhancement with Fastly Fastly

Filestack's Scalability and Security Enhancement with Fastly

Fastly

Technology Category	Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Event-Driven Application Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Middleware & Microservices
Applicable Industries	Cement National Security & Defense
Applicable Functions	Logistics & Transportation Maintenance
Use Cases	Inventory Management Tamper Detection
Challenge	Filestack, a low code content API platform, was facing challenges in scaling their rapidly growing file management service. They were in need of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that could support their expanding services in a reliable, cost-effective, and fast manner. Their service involved image transformation, which resulted in multiple versions of the same file, and they needed a way to invalidate these versions quickly. They also required customization at the edge, a large number of powerful and strategically located Points of Presence (POPs), and the ability to handle large file sizes. Additionally, Filestack was struggling with the management of Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates, a task that was distracting their team from product development. They were also considering dropping a premium feature, CNAME, due to the burden of managing a certificate and private key for each customer. Read More
About Customer	Filestack is a low code content API platform that enables developers to build automated content processing and analysis faster, with higher quality, and at less cost. Their scalable infrastructure powers billions of uploads, transformations, and downloads every month, providing unparalleled performance to users anywhere in the world. By eliminating the need to build and maintain a content ingestion stack, Filestack helps companies save time and money, allowing them to focus their resources on their own apps or software. Filestack's services include file uploads, file transformation, and delivery. They also offer a premium feature, CNAME, which allows their customers to format their Filestack URLs with a custom domain. Read More
Solution	Filestack partnered with Fastly, a CDN provider, to scale their business and enhance security. Fastly's solutions enabled Filestack to scale their data transfer by nearly 20x. Fastly's purging and invalidation feature allowed Filestack to invalidate file versions in seconds, compared to the previous 15 minutes. Fastly's custom Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) provided the customization that Filestack needed, and their configuration versioning offered instant, one-click rollbacks. Fastly's high-density POPs ensured ultra-fast delivery for a seamless user experience. Fastly also helped Filestack manage large file sizes. Fastly's TLS management relieved Filestack from the cumbersome task of managing TLS certificates. It also allowed Filestack to scale their CNAME feature to hundreds of certificates. Filestack is also planning to implement Fastly's Compute@Edge for high performance, serverless computing at the edge, and Fastly's next-generation web application firewall (WAF) for enhanced security. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Event-Driven Application

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Middleware & Microservices

Applicable Industries

Cement

National Security & Defense

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Maintenance

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Tamper Detection

Challenge

Filestack, a low code content API platform, was facing challenges in scaling their rapidly growing file management service. They were in need of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that could support their expanding services in a reliable, cost-effective, and fast manner. Their service involved image transformation, which resulted in multiple versions of the same file, and they needed a way to invalidate these versions quickly. They also required customization at the edge, a large number of powerful and strategically located Points of Presence (POPs), and the ability to handle large file sizes. Additionally, Filestack was struggling with the management of Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates, a task that was distracting their team from product development. They were also considering dropping a premium feature, CNAME, due to the burden of managing a certificate and private key for each customer.

About Customer

Filestack is a low code content API platform that enables developers to build automated content processing and analysis faster, with higher quality, and at less cost. Their scalable infrastructure powers billions of uploads, transformations, and downloads every month, providing unparalleled performance to users anywhere in the world. By eliminating the need to build and maintain a content ingestion stack, Filestack helps companies save time and money, allowing them to focus their resources on their own apps or software. Filestack's services include file uploads, file transformation, and delivery. They also offer a premium feature, CNAME, which allows their customers to format their Filestack URLs with a custom domain.

Solution

Filestack partnered with Fastly, a CDN provider, to scale their business and enhance security. Fastly's solutions enabled Filestack to scale their data transfer by nearly 20x. Fastly's purging and invalidation feature allowed Filestack to invalidate file versions in seconds, compared to the previous 15 minutes. Fastly's custom Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) provided the customization that Filestack needed, and their configuration versioning offered instant, one-click rollbacks. Fastly's high-density POPs ensured ultra-fast delivery for a seamless user experience. Fastly also helped Filestack manage large file sizes. Fastly's TLS management relieved Filestack from the cumbersome task of managing TLS certificates. It also allowed Filestack to scale their CNAME feature to hundreds of certificates. Filestack is also planning to implement Fastly's Compute@Edge for high performance, serverless computing at the edge, and Fastly's next-generation web application firewall (WAF) for enhanced security.

Impact #1	The partnership with Fastly has brought significant operational benefits to Filestack. Fastly's solutions have not only helped Filestack scale their services and enhance security but also saved them time and resources, allowing them to focus on product development. Fastly's custom VCL and configuration versioning have provided Filestack with the flexibility and reliability they needed, ensuring a better experience for their customers. Fastly's high-density POPs have enabled ultra-fast delivery, enhancing the user experience. The adoption of Fastly's TLS management has relieved Filestack from the cumbersome task of managing TLS certificates, and allowed them to continue offering and scaling their CNAME feature. Filestack is also planning to implement Fastly's Compute@Edge and next-generation WAF, which will further enhance their security and lighten the load on their infrastructure. Over the six years of their partnership with Fastly, Filestack has never had a major issue using the platform, and the support they've received has exceeded expectations, leading them to continue finding new Fastly features to use and moving more traffic to Fastly as they continue their rapid growth trajectory.

Impact #1

The partnership with Fastly has brought significant operational benefits to Filestack. Fastly's solutions have not only helped Filestack scale their services and enhance security but also saved them time and resources, allowing them to focus on product development. Fastly's custom VCL and configuration versioning have provided Filestack with the flexibility and reliability they needed, ensuring a better experience for their customers. Fastly's high-density POPs have enabled ultra-fast delivery, enhancing the user experience. The adoption of Fastly's TLS management has relieved Filestack from the cumbersome task of managing TLS certificates, and allowed them to continue offering and scaling their CNAME feature. Filestack is also planning to implement Fastly's Compute@Edge and next-generation WAF, which will further enhance their security and lighten the load on their infrastructure. Over the six years of their partnership with Fastly, Filestack has never had a major issue using the platform, and the support they've received has exceeded expectations, leading them to continue finding new Fastly features to use and moving more traffic to Fastly as they continue their rapid growth trajectory.

Benefit #1	Fastly enabled Filestack to scale their data transfer by nearly 20x, from less than a petabyte a year in 2015 to approximately 18 petabytes of data annually as of 2021.
Benefit #2	Fastly's purging and invalidation feature reduced the time it took for a file to be invalidated from 15 minutes to seconds.
Benefit #3	Fastly's TLS management allowed Filestack to scale their CNAME feature to hundreds of certificates, from only a dozen previously.

Benefit #1

Fastly enabled Filestack to scale their data transfer by nearly 20x, from less than a petabyte a year in 2015 to approximately 18 petabytes of data annually as of 2021.

Benefit #2

Fastly's purging and invalidation feature reduced the time it took for a file to be invalidated from 15 minutes to seconds.

Benefit #3

Fastly's TLS management allowed Filestack to scale their CNAME feature to hundreds of certificates, from only a dozen previously.

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Overview

Filestack's Scalability and Security Enhancement with Fastly

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit