{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-author-jsx","path":"/blog/author/luca_salvatore/","result":{"data":{"prismic":{"allFeaturedblogs":{"edges":[{"node":{"featured_blogs_enabled":true,"heading":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Featured posts","spans":[]}],"featured_blog_1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":395},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/6d8d81b1-971a-4313-b033-b4e125cb14a0_MondoDB-blog-header-790x395.PNG?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Introducing DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB – a fully managed, database as a service for modern apps","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-06-29","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"MongoDB is one of the most popular databases, and it’s ideal for apps that evolve rapidly and need to handle huge volumes of data and traffic. It offers advantages like flexible document schemas, code-native data access, change-friendly design, and easy horizontal scale-out.","spans":[{"start":22,"end":44,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://db-engines.com/en/ranking","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"However, building and maintaining MongoDB clusters from the ground up can be a huge undertaking. Developers often complain that they have to spend their valuable time and resources on database management. Well, we’ve been listening and have some great news: accessing and managing MongoDB on DigitalOcean just got a lot simpler!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are excited to announce that DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB is now in General Availability. Managed MongoDB is a fully managed, database as a service (DBaaS) offering from DigitalOcean, built in partnership with and certified by MongoDB Inc. It provides you all the technical capabilities that make MongoDB so beloved in the developer community. Together we have ensured that you will get access to all the latest releases of the MongoDB document database as they become available.","spans":[{"start":32,"end":91,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-databases-mongodb/"}},{"start":230,"end":241,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.mongodb.com/","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB simplifies the MongoDB administration. Developers of all skill levels, even those who do not have prior experience in databases, can spin up MongoDB clusters in just a few minutes. We handle the provisioning, managing, scaling, updates, backups, and security of your MongoDB clusters, allowing you to offload the complex, time consuming –yet critical – database administration tasks to us. This empowers you to focus on what really matters: building awesome apps.","spans":[]},{"type":"embed","oembed":{"height":113,"width":200,"embed_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvHQSV7jnKA","type":"video","version":"1.0","title":"Create a MongoDB Database on DigitalOcean","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalocean","provider_name":"YouTube","provider_url":"https://www.youtube.com/","cache_age":null,"thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NvHQSV7jnKA/hqdefault.jpg","thumbnail_width":480,"thumbnail_height":360,"html":""}},{"type":"heading2","text":"Benefits of Managed MongoDB","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Easy set up and maintenance: We create the database clusters for you. Simply choose the cluster configuration (e.g., memory, disk size, number of nodes, etc.), and the data center in which you want to host the database. Follow a few simple steps and your database cluster will be up and running in a matter of minutes. You can spin up clusters using the cloud control panel, CLI, or API.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":28,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Automatic daily backups with point in time recovery: Data is one of the most important assets of an app, so it’s critical to backup your database. We take backups of your entire clusters automatically on a daily basis, for free. We also provide a point in time recovery for 7 days, that way if things go wrong due to human error, machine error, or some combination of both, you can easily restore the database as it was at any point in the previous 7 days. \n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":52,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Automatic updates and access to latest MongoDB releases: You get access to MongoDB 4.4. This is the latest release of MongoDB and comes packed with numerous enhancements like hedged reads, rust, and swift drivers. Since we have developed Managed MongoDB in partnership with MongoDB Inc, you will always get access to new releases as they become available. With Managed MongoDB, the updates happen automatically. Just select a date and time for the updates and we take care of the rest. This makes it easy to stay up to date with MongoDB releases without disrupting your business.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":56,"type":"strong"},{"start":148,"end":169,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.mongodb.com/new","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"High availability with automated failover: If your database goes down, it can take down the entire app, leading to bad customer experiences. With Managed MongoDB, you can easily minimize the downtime for your database and make it highly available with standby nodes. Standby nodes add redundancy, so if for example the primary node fails, the standby node is immediately promoted to primary and begins serving requests while we provision a replacement standby node in the background.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":42,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Scale up easily to handle traffic spikes: As your app gains traction and the usage grows, it’s important to have a database that can keep up with the increased demand. With Managed MongoDB, you can easily scale up the size of database nodes when needed.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":41,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Secure by default: Since data is critical, it also needs to be secure. We encrypt data at rest with LUKS and in transit with SSL. When you create a new cluster, it’s placed in a VPC network by default that provides a more secure connection between resources. You can also restrict access to your nodes to prevent brute-force password and denial-of-service attacks.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":18,"type":"strong"},{"start":178,"end":189,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/networking/vpc/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The need for Managed Databases","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean’s mission is to simplify cloud computing so developers, startups, and SMBs can spend more time building software that changes the world. While databases are a critical component to any application, building, maintaining, and scaling them can be complex and time consuming. For developers that are building apps for their business, database administration is often not a core focus area. But it’s quite common to find developers that write the code and then also roll up their sleeves to maintain databases. Such users would rather offload the tedious database administration and focus their limited time and energy on building and enhancing their apps. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With this in mind, we introduced Managed Databases a couple of years ago and are excited to add Managed MongoDB to our portfolio. With this release, DigitalOcean Managed Databases now supports the following engines:","spans":[{"start":33,"end":50,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-databases/"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/87745cc1-1c5f-4463-b104-104b7fc30dc7_managed-databases-logos.png?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":849,"height":104}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB launch comes on the heels of DigitalOcean App Platform, a modern, reimagined PaaS (Platform as a Service) that we released a few months ago. App Platform makes it very easy to build, deploy, and scale apps and static sites. You can deploy code by simply pointing to your GitHub and GitLab repos, and App Platform will do all the heavy lifting of managing infrastructure, app runtimes, and dependencies. App Platform, along with Managed Databases, helps fulfill DigitalOcean’s mission by empowering developers, startups, and SMBs to focus more on their apps, and less on the underlying infrastructure and databases.","spans":[{"start":45,"end":70,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"How Managed MongoDB works","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean provides you with various compute options to build your apps like:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Droplets: On-demand, Linux virtual machines suitable for production business applications and personal passion projects.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":8,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Managed Kubernetes with automatic scaling, upgrades, and a free control plane.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":23,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/kubernetes/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"DigitalOcean App Platform: A fully managed Platform as a Service.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":25,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"No matter which compute option you choose to build your apps, you can easily add Managed MongoDB to it. In addition to this, Managed MongoDB also integrates with the Node.js 1-Click App from DigitalOcean Marketplace making it a lot easier to build Node.js apps.","spans":[{"start":166,"end":215,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/nodejs"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Simple, predictable pricing","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Just like all DigitalOcean products, Managed MongoDB provides simple, predictable pricing that allows you to control costs and prevent any surprise bills. You can spin up a database cluster for just $15/month, or a highly available three-node replica set for $45/month. Click here for more information.","spans":[{"start":270,"end":301,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/#managed-databases"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Regional availability","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB is currently available in the following regions:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"NYC3 (New York, USA)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"FRA1 (Frankfurt, Germany)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"AMS3 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We will be making Managed Mongo available in other regions soon. Please check out the release notes for most up to date information on regional availability.","spans":[{"start":86,"end":99,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/release-notes/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Join us at deploy, DigitalOcean’s virtual user conference","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today we have deploy, DigitalOcean’s signature user conference, which focuses on celebrating, educating, and connecting awesome builders from all over the world.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":20,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://deploy.digitalocean.com/home"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Check out the keynote session from DigitalOcean's CEO, Yancey Spruill, in which he talks about where we're headed as a company and shares some exciting product updates. His keynote will be followed by sessions from community members, engineers, customers, and other experts that are building technologies and businesses powered by the cloud. With live Q&A and an active Discord server, there’s ample opportunity to engage and learn something new. Click here to attend the deploy conference.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":69,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://deploy.digitalocean.com/agenda/session/552806"}},{"start":347,"end":384,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy-discord"}},{"start":461,"end":489,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are also launching a hackathon for DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB. Learn how you can participate, submit an app and get a t-shirt.","spans":[{"start":24,"end":66,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/mongodb-hackathon"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you will give Managed MongoDB a try. Here are some sample datasets and sample apps that you can use to kick the tires. Check out the docs and let us know what you think!","spans":[{"start":22,"end":43,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cloud.digitalocean.com/databases/new?engine=mongodb"}},{"start":59,"end":90,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/do-community/mongodb-resources","target":"_blank"}},{"start":141,"end":145,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/mongodb/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you’d like to have a conversation about using DigitalOcean and Managed MongoDB in your business, please feel free to contact our sales team.","spans":[{"start":120,"end":142,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/sales/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Happy coding!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"André Bearfield","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Director of Product Management","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Product Updates","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"product-updates"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"André Bearfield","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":553,"height":547},"alt":"André Bearfield","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fdc7c85186f0a850b04083e1d4306bd1c19772e8_andre-bearfield.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"andre-bearfield"}},"_meta":{"uid":"introducing-digitalocean-managed-mongodb"}},"featured_blog_2":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":400},"alt":"Droplet Console","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/710499ae-78cc-4179-afc1-15793637b200_DODX3727-790x400-logo-2.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Securely connect to Droplets with SSH key pairs using a new Droplet Console","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-08-10","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"The famous author Ken Blanchard once said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.\" This is something we truly believe at DigitalOcean, and we always strive to enhance our products based on customer feedback.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With this goal in mind, we are excited to introduce a new Droplet Console that will make it much easier to connect to your Droplets securely. The new Droplet Console provides one-click SSH access to your Droplets through a native-like SSH/Terminal experience. It also eliminates the need for a password or manual configuration of SSH keys. Starting today, we’re pleased to announce that the new Droplet Console is now available to all Droplet users.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Why you should be using Secure Shell (SSH) ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Password-based security is notoriously insecure due to password fatigue and the overuse of passwords such as ‘123456’. Secure Shell or SSH is a network communication protocol that solves this by using passwordless solutions for encryption, enabling two computers to communicate and securely share data. At a high level, SSH works by creating cryptographic key pairs consisting of a public and private key, which are computer generated and stored separately to ensure their security. ","spans":[{"start":80,"end":117,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cybernews.com/best-password-managers/most-common-passwords/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"SSH has become the default encryption protocol for many industries, but it was difficult to use SSH keys with DigitalOcean’s current Recovery (VNC) console, which is why we developed our new Droplet Console. The new Droplet Console is backed by an agent that security supervises the key pair, while also providing one-click SSH access to our users. You can see the full list of features below.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The new Droplet Console: More time saving, less time wasting ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The new Droplet Console is for everyone who is looking to build fast, secure apps and avoid hassles with SSH access & usability issues.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In addition to easier SSH access, the new Droplet Console comes with:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Copy/paste text: Instead of typing lengthy key pairs and text manually, you can use copy/paste to save time. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":17,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Multi-color support: Multi-color support makes the console more useful and intuitive, and breaks the conventional standard appearance which is black text on a white background. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":41,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Multi-language support: DigitalOcean’s new Droplet Console supports multiple languages, meaning you can now type and view any content in any language that is supported by UTF-8","spans":[{"start":0,"end":24,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"OS/images supported: Linux distributions (Ubuntu(16.04 - 20.04), Fedora (32 & 33), Debian (9), CentOS (7.6 & 8.3), CentOS 8 Stream, Rocky Linux and Marketplace images.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":20,"type":"strong"},{"start":148,"end":159,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The new Droplet Console is available by default on any new Droplets you spin up. You can also enable it manually on older Droplets. Click here to learn more!","spans":[{"start":132,"end":157,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-console/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Check out this short walkthrough video that shows the new Droplet Console in action: ","spans":[]},{"type":"embed","oembed":{"type":"video","embed_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt7QihVuxiE","title":"Access Your Droplet Terminal Through the Web Console","provider_name":"YouTube","thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qt7QihVuxiE/hqdefault.jpg","provider_url":"https://www.youtube.com/","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalocean","height":113,"width":200,"version":"1.0","thumbnail_height":360,"thumbnail_width":480,"html":""}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you’re excited about the new Droplet Console. You’re welcome to spin some Droplets up right now, and try out the new Droplet Console – why wait?","spans":[{"start":72,"end":103,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets/new"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Happy coding!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Harsh Banwait, Senior Product Manager","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Product Updates","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"product-updates"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"Harsh Banwait","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":399},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/e83ff690-b20c-4d88-a2b6-57e562558cd6_download.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"harsh-banwait"}},"_meta":{"uid":"new-droplet-console-ssh-support"}},"featured_blog_3":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":400},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/588e28d3-d41e-480b-937b-8c3b19201f6e_DODX3568-790x400-Blog.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"How to scale your SaaS product without breaking the bank","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-06-22","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"These days, if you are in the business of software, chances are you are delivering or plan to deliver your services using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. A combination of internet-based delivery, subscription-based pricing, and low-friction product experiences have made SaaS solutions valuable tools for their users, and an excellent vehicle for software builders looking to distribute their products.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"These factors have made SaaS solutions ubiquitous; SaaS is the largest segment in the public cloud market, and is used to provide functionality ranging from personal finance apps for consumers, to productivity software for businesses, and even tools and services for software developers themselves to compose their applications and simplify their workflows. It is also not uncommon to find micro-SaaS applications being built for specific industries such as retail, job functions such as accounting or marketing, or tasks such as event management. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The best thing about this SaaS wave has been that it has allowed a new generation of software builders to build and monetize applications and participate in the digital economy. Previously, you had to be a big company with lots of resources, name recognition and distribution networks to successfully sell software products. Now, irrespective of whether you are a single person working on a passion project, a small team of developers in a startup, or a small and medium-sized business (SMB), the SaaS model enables you to express your ideas in the form of software and deliver them to customers anywhere in the world.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The unique challenges of building SaaS solutions","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Despite the opportunities that come with the widespread adoption of SaaS products, software builders still have to answer key questions in their journey to building successful SaaS products. Understanding what customers to target, features to prioritize, how to price your product, and how to acquire customers are all critical questions to figure out while you are also doing the important job of actually building and operating the product. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Writing the code, testing, deployment, monitoring the usage in production, and ensuring that your apps are able to handle the additional demand when customer base and usage grows are all essential and time-consuming tasks.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Additionally, being able to test multiple ideas, pivot, and double down on the ideas that actually work is critical in early stages of SaaS development. Once growth comes, it is equally important to scale up without compromising on performance or reliability. Needless to say, all of this needs to be economically viable as well, since not everyone has the resources of large SaaS providers like Salesforce or Adobe.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Cloud Computing enables builders but also poses challenges","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Fortunately, for the act of building and operating your apps, cloud computing can help take some load off your shoulders. Unless you have the scale and resources of Facebook, chances are you are not going to set up your own data centers to host the computing infrastructure that powers your SaaS company. Public cloud infrastructure providers can bring great value to SaaS builders by providing on-demand computing services with usage-based pricing. However, just like how the legacy software companies weren't built for the SaaS model, the early (and big) cloud computing services were not optimized for the unique needs of small SaaS building teams. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Smaller SaaS teams face challenges with large cloud computing providers, including:","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Too many technology options","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"There are just too many options for tech stacks on which to build your SaaS - programming languages, application development frameworks, libraries, runtime environments, architectural patterns, and deployment models - and the list is growing by the day.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Complexity of cloud computing services","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Even when you have decided on a technology stack, there is a lot of cloud vendor-specific terminology you need to learn and heavy lifting you need to do to build on the cloud, not all of which contributes to making your SaaS applications successful.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Unpredictable costs","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The experimentation necessary in early stages of SaaS development, as well as the scaling of applications required during the growth phase, call for affordable and predictable pricing from your cloud provider. The last thing SaaS teams want is surprising and indecipherable bills from your cloud provider. Unfortunately, smaller businesses often experience unpredictable costs with cloud providers who are busy serving only the large enterprises.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"DigitalOcean provides a simple, cost effective solution for SaaS builders","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Fortunately, at DigitalOcean we have a laser focus on small software development teams, who are trying to build the next generation of applications. Today, DigitalOcean customers are already building SaaS applications which serve all kinds of customers.","spans":[{"start":191,"end":217,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/solutions/saas/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We believe SaaS builders should focus on building apps that power their business, and not spend their valuable time on managing infrastructure. That is exactly what we have been able to enable through our intuitive products that are built for scale and reliability.","spans":[{"start":205,"end":223,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Vidazoo is an advertising technology company specializing in video streaming and serving. It serves video ads to thousands of websites and handles close to 10 billion requests per day. \n\n“We are as much a data company as an adtech company. Our business relies on speedy and accurate data processing at massive scale. DigitalOcean provides us the perfect set of tools to operate our SaaS business profitably, while not making us feel the need to become full time system administrators. We plan to move a lot of our apps to DigitalOcean App Platform and other fully managed products.” - Roman Svichar, CTO of Vidazoo","spans":[{"start":0,"end":7,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://vidazoo.com/"}},{"start":187,"end":583,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We believe in meeting customers where they are. If they already have an understanding of cloud infrastructure technologies, they should be able to leverage that knowledge and get started with our products without any further ramp up.","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Whatfix is an enterprise SaaS provider that offers a digital adoption platform to businesses. The company helps enterprises gain the full value of their investments in enterprise applications by providing real-time, interactive, and contextual guidance to users of those applications. \n\n“What we really love about the DigitalOcean platform is the ease of use. We feel like we know infrastructure and can handle most of the configuration and management. What we needed from a cloud was not bells and whistles but efficiency and reliability. DigitalOcean provides us a platform to build our apps and then gets out of the way. Just how we like it.” - Achyuth Krishna, Director of Engineering of Whatfix","spans":[{"start":0,"end":7,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://whatfix.com/blog/driving-the-future-now-were-excited-to-announce-our-90-million-series-d-funding/"}},{"start":287,"end":648,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We understand that scaling while maintaining reliability of applications and profitability of business is important, so we provide robust solutions which minimize downtime.","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Centra is a SaaS-based e-commerce platform for global direct-to-consumer and wholesale e-commerce brands. Centra provides a powerful e-commerce backend that lets brands build pixel-perfect, custom designed, online flagship stores. \n\n“How do we enable our customers to create differentiated online experiences? How do we ensure their e-commerce apps stay up and running at all times? How do we scale on-demand when traffic grows or new customers come in? These are the questions that we ask ourselves every day. Thankfully, we have a partner in DigitalOcean that provides just the platform to answer those questions enabling us to guarantee 99.9% uptime for our clients.” - Martin Jensen, CEO of Centra","spans":[{"start":0,"end":6,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://centra.com/"}},{"start":233,"end":673,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"These are just a few examples of SaaS businesses finding success on DigitalOcean. We are constantly amazed by the creativity and innovation that software builders are utilizing our platform for. If you are interested in learning more about product updates, technical deep-dives and best practices for building SaaS products and businesses, please contact us to learn how we can help you get started. ","spans":[{"start":340,"end":357,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/migrate/?utmmedium=blog","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Come build with DigitalOcean!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Looking to migrate your SaaS to DigitalOcean? Leverage free infrastructure credits, robust training, and technical support to ensure a worry-free migration.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":156,"type":"strong"},{"start":0,"end":156,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/migrate/?utmmedium=blog","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Raman Sharma","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Vice President, Product & Programs Marketing","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Developer Relations","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"developer-relations"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"Raman Sharma","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":512,"height":512},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/497b4b14-d192-493a-8b66-7ae176ba99f3_raman.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"raman-sharma"}},"_meta":{"uid":"how-to-scale-your-saas-product-without-breaking-the-bank"}}}}]}}},"pageContext":{"limit":12,"skip":0,"numAuthorPages":1,"currentPage":1,"uid":"luca_salvatore","data":[{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Luca Salvatore","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":250,"height":250},"alt":"Luca Salvatore","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fd8fb2a54e8e54d882c33bccac82b22a684d920e_9bb2be860884302b74920173da25866a.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"luca_salvatore"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":"DigitalOcean logo illustration","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/23626aa48384759b9118769a56f86f991bbfd315_whatsnewonthedonetwork_blog_pat.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"What's New With the DigitalOcean Network","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Early this year the network engineering team at DigitalOcean embarked on a fairly ambitious project. We were thinking about areas of our network that needed improvement both for our customers and for our internal systems. One of the key things that we strive for at DO is to provide our customers with a stable and high performing cloud platform. As we continue to grow and release new products, it becomes clear that network infrastructure is a critical component and it must keep up with our customers needs. In order to allow our customers to grow, the network must be able to scale, it must be performant, and above all, must be reliable.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With those factors in mind, we went to work building out the DigitalOcean global backbone. It’s not finished yet, but we wanted to share what has been done so far, what is in progress, and what the end state will be.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Creating a Backbone Network","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean currently operates 12 datacenter regions (DCs) all around the world. Up until recently, these datacenters have functioned as independent “island” networks. This means that if you have Droplets in multiple locations and they need to communicate with each other, that communication goes across the public internet. For the most part, that “just works”, but the internet is susceptible to a multitude of potential problems: ISPs can have technical problems, congestion is common, and there are malicious attacks that can cause widespread issues. If you have an application that requires communication between multiple regions, the factors mentioned above could throw a wrench in even the most well designed system. To mitigate this risk, we are building our own backbone network.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"A backbone network allows us to interconnect our DCs using a variety of technologies such as dark fiber and wavelengths. This means that communication between DO locations no longer needs to traverse the public internet. Instead, traffic between locations runs over dedicated links that DigitalOcean manages. This gives our customers predictable and reliable transport between regions. Predictable and reliable are the key words here, and this is immensely important for anyone who is building mission critical applications. It allows developers and engineers to know exactly how their application will perform, and feel safe in the fact that their traffic is running over dedicated and redundant infrastructure.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our customers have probably noticed a number of “Network Maintenance Notifications” that we’ve sent out. In order to build out our backbone and ensure that it is scalable, reliable, and performant, we’ve had to make a number of changes to our existing network infrastructure. This includes software upgrades, new hardware, and a number of complex configuration changes. The end result will ensure that our current and future customers will benefit from all of this work.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Now, onto the details. This is what we have built so far, and what we'll build in the future.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Networking Through DO-Owned Links","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’ve interconnected our three NYC locations; All Droplet-to-Droplet traffic between NYC1, NYC2, and NYC3 now traverses DO-owned links. Latency is predictable and stable, and packet loss is nonexistent.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’ve done the same thing around all of our European locations: LON1, AMS2, AMS3, and FRA1 are all now interconnected together. Again, all traffic between Droplets within the EU now stays within the DO network. Here is how it looks:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/9f23c1291d8e12155deb9a29e7dcecd72fdbf5c4_pasted-image-0.png?auto=compress,format","alt":"Active and provisioning EU networks","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1161,"height":817}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’ve also provisioned transatlantic links connecting our NYC regions to our European regions. This means that your communication between NYC and any datacenter in Europe also stays within our own network:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/ff5e1d0a1bb2fbfc15fccc84b2022342863d5c9f_na---eu-fiber.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":"Transatlantic links","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1570,"height":660}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Adding more to the mix, we’ve connected our NYC locations to our two facilities in California, SFO1 and SFO2. All communication around North America as well as communication within and to Europe now stays within the DO backbone:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/ea41f20b50d226c02409586fee4f62f8187fe39f_na-fiber-1.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":"North American network","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1427,"height":743}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Next up will be connectivity from the SFO region to SGP1. We also have plans to link Singapore to Europe which is slated for Q1 2018 as well as TOR1 to NYC. Once fully completed, the DO global backbone will look like this:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fce7e20463050252ad6de03b08e808e467dedf6f_do-global-network-1.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":"DO global network","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1569,"height":792}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are very excited about what these upgrades mean for DO and for you, our users. We’re continually striving to create better performing and more reliable infrastructure, and I feel that these upgrades to the network will set the stage for some really awesome things to be built on top of the DO platform.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Luca Salvatore is currently the manager of the Networking Engineering Team at DigitalOcean. Over the past decade Luca has held various network engineering roles both in Australia and the USA. He has designed and built large enterprise and datacenter networks and has first hand experience dealing with massively scalable networks such as DigitalOcean. He has been working in the cloud networking space for the past 5 years and is committed to peering and an open internet for all.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":482,"type":"em"},{"start":445,"end":452,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://blog.digitalocean.com/connect-the-dots-with-internet-peering-at-ix-points/"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2017-10-18","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"whats-new-with-the-digitalocean-network"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Luca Salvatore","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":250,"height":250},"alt":"Luca Salvatore","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fd8fb2a54e8e54d882c33bccac82b22a684d920e_9bb2be860884302b74920173da25866a.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"luca_salvatore"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/b654ce2f-b279-40ab-b1a7-b7fe43a28fae_ZeroTouchProvisioning-blog.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Zero Touch Provisioning: How to Build a Network Without Touching Anything","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Last month, we proudly launched our 11th datacenter in Toronto, Canada. Building new datacenters is becoming a pretty common occurrence for us; we launched three last year, two this year, and there are plenty more coming in the near future.","spans":[{"start":23,"end":62,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/introducing-our-new-canadian-datacenter-tor1/"}},{"start":111,"end":117,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/introducing-our-new-european-region-frankfurt/"}},{"start":118,"end":124,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/introducing-our-london-region/"}},{"start":125,"end":135,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/announcing-nyc3-with-ipv6-support/"}},{"start":136,"end":142,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/we-re-excited-to-announce-our-singapore-datacenter-sgp1/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This means that building a DC has become a repeatable task, and repeatable tasks are tasks that are begging for automation. This blog is the story of how we have built our last few datacenters without needing to manually log in to the majority of our devices.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The Slow Way","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"There is a fair amount of effort that goes into building a network in a brand new location, not to mention the tight timeline. It's critical that the network is up and running early in the build process; without it, there's no connectivity and our platform engineers can't come in and build the hypervisors.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In any new deployment, there are typically around 50 new switches to configure. Most switches have an identical configuration (except for some unique things, like the management IP address), and the new switches will almost always need their software updated to our standard version.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In our early days, deploying a new network meant logging into every switch via the console port, pasting a config from a template, and then upgrading the software. With so many switches to build, it was time consuming and — let's face it — pretty boring. The whole process was in need of a total overhaul.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Not Touching Anything… Almost","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For our automated network deployment to work, we have to address a chicken and egg problem: there needs to be some form of networking already in place so the new switches can download their updated code and grab their configuration template.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"As a result, a small part of the network still does need to be built by hand. This is typically a small-ish firewall connected to what we call our \"out of band\" (OOB) internet link, plus a few switches to provide connectivity to the management ports of our switches. These devices have a very basic configuration, so it's easy to copy and paste it and get some initial connectivity.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Additionally, we need to know the MAC address of each switch, which is printed on the side of the chassis. Fortunately, we have a fantastic datacenter team that flies all over the world to do all the physical labor involved with deploying a new location. These folks have racking and stacking down to a fine art, and part of their process is to note down the MAC address of each switch they are racking into a file for use later on.","spans":[{"start":130,"end":155,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://instagram.com/p/yxB1Tos8F-/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The Fast Way, aka Zero Touch Provisioning","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The actual automation of the building process is known as Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP). Most major networking vendors have some form of ZTP support, and the process is pretty simple. There are a few specific configurations needed on the ZTP server to make everything work.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading3","text":"Setting Up DHCP","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"First, we need a DHCP server. We use good old ISC DHCP running on a Ubuntu server, and configure it to give the switch the information it needs once it boots up. This is the top of our dhcpd.conf file:","spans":[{"start":185,"end":195,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ztp-file-server code 150 = { ip-address };","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option space ZTP;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.image-file-name code 0 = text;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.config-file-name code 1 = text;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.image-file-type code 2 = text;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.transfer-mode code 3 = text;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP-encap code 43 = encapsulate ZTP;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ztp-file-server 10.126.1.1;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.image-file-name \"/software/switch-image-file.tgz\";","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.transfer-mode \"http\";","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This basically tells a switch what it needs to know to grab its template and where to grab its updated software.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The next bit of the dhcpd.conf file looks similar to this:","spans":[{"start":20,"end":30,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" group {","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" host tor1-spine1 {","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" hardware ethernet 5C:45:27:23:2F:01;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" fixed-address 10.200.72.138;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option routers 10.200.72.129;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option subnet-mask 255.255.255.192;","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" option ZTP.config-file-name \"/tor1-spine1.config\";","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" }","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" }","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is where the MAC address from the side of the switches' chassis comes into play. We need each switch to pull down the correct configuration template, so the MAC address is used to identify the switch. The `dhcpd.conf` file will have an entry like the one above for every single switch that we want to ZTP.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Because creating a entry for 50 or so switches would be pretty annoying, we also automate this using simple Python script which spits out the appropriate `dhcpd.conf` file containing all the correct MAC addresses and IP addresses.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading3","text":"Configuration Templates","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For this process to be fully automated, each new switch needs to have a configuration template ready to go. To make this happen, we use the Jinja2 templating software and some Python, which makes it easy to create a whole bunch of templates quickly. We create a template for every device that is going to be deployed and upload the templates to the ZTP server.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Voila!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The switch boots up and sends out a DHCP request, which the OOB firewall relays to the ZTP server. The switch then grabs its config template, downloads its software, and that's it!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Here is the console output from a real Juniper QFX switch going through the process:","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":"root>","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: DHCP Client Bound interfaces:","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: DHCP Client Unbound interfaces: irb.0 vme.0 et-0/0/0.0 e","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" t-0/0/1.0 et-0/0/2.0 et-0/0/3.0 et-0/0/4.0 et-0/0/5.0 et-0/0/6.0 et-0/0/7","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" .0 et-0/0/8.0 et-0/0/9.0 et-0/0/10.0 et-0/0/11.0 et-0/0/12.0 et-0/0/13.0","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" et-0/0/14.0 et-0/0/15.0 et-0/0/16.0 et-0/0/17.0 et-0/0/18.0 et-0/0/19.0","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" et-0/0/20.0 et-0/0/21.0 et-0/0/22.0 et-0/0/23.0 et-0/1/0.0 et-0/1/1.0 et-","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" 0/1/2.0 et-0/1/3.0 et-0/2/0.0 et-0/2/1.0","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: No DHCP Client in bound state, reset all enabled DHCP clients","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" ","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: DHCP Options for client interface vme.0:","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" ConfigFile: /nyc3-spine3.config","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" ImageFile: /jinstall-qfx-5-13.2X51-D35.3-domestic-signed.tgz","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Gateway: 10.198.73.129","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" File Server: 10.1.2.3","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Options state: All options set","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: DHCP Client Bound interfaces: vme.0","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Active on client interface: vme.0","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Interface:: \"vme\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Server:: \"10.1.2.3\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Image File:: \"jinstall-qfx-5-13.2X51-D35.3-domestic-signed","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" .tgz\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Config File:: \"nyc3-spine3.config\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Gateway:: \"10.198.73.129\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Protocol:: \"http\"","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Start fetching nyc3-a1-spine3.config file from server 10.1.2.3 through vme using http","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: File nyc3-spine3.config fetched from server 10.1.2.3 through vme","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" Auto Image Upgrade: Start fetching jinstall-qfx-5-13.2X51-D35.3-domestic-signed","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" .tgz file from server 10.1.2.3 through vme using http","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" ","spans":[]},{"type":"preformatted","text":" WARNING!!! On successful image installation, system will reboot automatically","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With the old process, it would take a full day of work to build 50 switches. With the new process, it takes 5 minutes, and the longest part is just waiting for the switch to reboot for its software update.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Instead of manually logging into each device, we now set up a ZTP server, upload the configuration templates, then sit back and watch the network build itself.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"by Luca Salvatore","spans":[{"start":3,"end":17,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://twitter.com/_LucaNet"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2015-10-21","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"zero-touch-provisioning-how-to-build-a-network-without-touching-anything"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Luca Salvatore","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":250,"height":250},"alt":"Luca Salvatore","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fd8fb2a54e8e54d882c33bccac82b22a684d920e_9bb2be860884302b74920173da25866a.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"luca_salvatore"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":"Floating IPs illustration letters","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/3f964a6a976e625cdda27221a7b22d764fbdcacd_hero.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Floating IPs: Start Architecting Your Applications for High Availability","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"High Availability is key to any production environment. It grants developers peace of mind knowing their application is architected to withstand failure scenarios.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today, we are excited to announce Floating IPs. A Floating IP is an IP address that can be instantly moved from one Droplet to another Droplet in the same datacenter.","spans":[{"start":34,"end":46,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Part of a highly available infrastructure is being able to immediately point an IP address to a redundant server. This is now possible with the addition of Floating IPs.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"How It Works","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Single points of failure can be the downfall of any application. With Floating IPs, customers can associate an IP address with a different Droplet, with minimal downtime. This makes it possible to set up a standby Droplet, ready to receive your production traffic at a moment's notice.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/MDliOWQwNTgtMjFkMy00YzJkLTkxOWQtZjYyMDg4Y2NlMjk3_ha-diagram-animated.gif?auto=compress,format","alt":"Traffic is switched to another load balancer using the floating IP","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1200,"height":577}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Floating IPs are free to use. However, due to the shortage of IPv4 addresses available, if you reserve an address but don't assign it to a Droplet, we charge $0.006 per hour for each unassigned, reserved IP. (You can relinquish unused IPs from the control panel.) To keep billing simple, you will not be charged unless you accrue $1 or more.","spans":[{"start":118,"end":146,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Automatic Failover","spans":[{"start":0,"end":18,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With a bit of scripting, you're able to set up redundant load balancers that automatically fail over. If the primary load balancer goes offline, your traffic can be redirected to the secondary one with minimal application downtime.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":23,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-highly-available-web-servers-with-keepalived-and-floating-ips-on-ubuntu-14-04"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Smooth Upgrades","spans":[{"start":0,"end":15,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Floating IPs aren't just for failover situations. You can also use them for application upgrades. For example, you can spin up a new Droplet, run the upgrades on the new Droplet, and then switch the flow of traffic to the new Droplet.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Getting Started","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our Ruby and Go wrappers have been updated to support Floating IPs. You can also check out our API documentation.","spans":[{"start":4,"end":8,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/digitalocean/droplet_kit"}},{"start":13,"end":15,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/digitalocean/godo"}},{"start":95,"end":112,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/v2/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The easiest way to start using Floating IPs is to read our Floating IPs on DigitalOcean tutorial. It covers everything you need to know about Floating IPs, and includes links to further guides that will step you through creating your own high availability setup.","spans":[{"start":59,"end":87,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-floating-ips-on-digitalocean"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Floating IPs is our first step in addressing high availability, and you can expect more in the near future.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"by Brooke McKim","spans":[{"start":3,"end":15,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://twitter.com/brookemckim"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2015-10-19","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"News","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"news"}}},{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"floating-ips-start-architecting-your-applications-for-high-availability"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Luca Salvatore","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":250,"height":250},"alt":"Luca Salvatore","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fd8fb2a54e8e54d882c33bccac82b22a684d920e_9bb2be860884302b74920173da25866a.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"luca_salvatore"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":"next generation of digital networking","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/76d24fe4-9a7c-4cfc-aed1-57e3956539a1_hero.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Building the Next Generation of DigitalOcean Networking","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"On April 15th, we opened our newest datacenter in Frankfurt. The blog post announcing FRA1 mentioned that the new datacenter was built using 40G networking and faster SSDs. What that blog didn't mention was that the entire network was actually redesigned from the ground up to allow us to grow and scale to some pretty impressive numbers. On top of that, we have also started retrofitting some of our older locations with this new design, which includes 40G networking and newer, faster hypervisors.","spans":[{"start":61,"end":90,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://assets.digitalocean.com/blog/static/introducing-our-new-european-region-frankfurt/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In this blog, we'll go into more detail about how we've been upgrading live DCs to the new architecture, and also take a look into how we are building out future datacenters.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Frankfurt's Design","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"First, let's look at the at the new design that we used in Frankfurt. It is based on the widely used Clos topology which utilizes spine and leaf switches to build a highly scalable and redundant network. In this case, leaf switches are top of rack (TOR) switches, and spine switches act as an aggregation layer before heading into the core of the network.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Here's how it all looks:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/2661f8383196470a0ea2537161de1ba5256b1d84_fig1.png?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1058,"height":290}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The leaf switches in this diagram represent TOR switches. Each hypervisor in the rack has a 40G connection to both leaf switches. From there, every leaf switch connects to every spine (again, with 40G connections). This allows for huge amounts of bandwidth and provides a high level of redundancy.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Scaling the Network","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The diagram above only shows 4 pairs of leaf switches, which means 4 racks in this case. In reality, the number of racks each pod supports is limited to the number of ports in the spine. Each spine switch can have a maximum of 32 40G ports. We reserve some uplinks for the connections to the cores, so the number we work with is 12 racks per pod, i.e., 24 ports per spine. Once the spine is full, we scale out horizontally.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This diagram shows another pod added, along with the connections up to the core:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/41d67a2c6d708745b0e8db6f5e82a4217582bac0_fig2.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1178,"height":505}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Scaling the network out in this manner presents an interesting problem. All switches have limits on the amount of information they can hold. These are things like MAC addresses, ARPs entries, and routing information. In the core of our network, we are mainly concerned with the number of ARP entries that the core switches can store. The maximum number on the ARPs we support in the core is 256,000. While this may seem like a big number (and it is), only the biggest switches can support ARP tables that size.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Using Zones","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The solution to this problem is to split the network into zones. Where each pod has its own set of spine switches, each zone has its own set of core switches. Expanding on the diagram above, we can now have a network which looks like the diagram below, which also includes edge routers to show how two (or more) zones would connect to each other.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/93d21a5e1b9f22378788e3e4065eb13a0ed14684_fig3.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1182,"height":1102}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With this design, we are now able to scale out the network horizontally. The limiting factor becomes the availability of ports on the edge routers. Because that count is quite large, this design will last us for some time to come. Each different level of the network is connected using 40G interfaces, including the hypervisors. In most cases, these are configured using aggregation (802.3ad), so the bandwidth could be 80G or even 160G at some points.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Current and Future DCs","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Using this design, it's very easy to retrofit our existing locations. We simply build out the network in new racks, and when it's all working, we connect the new cores to the edge routers, make some changes in our backend code, and the new zone is live!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This new 40G design is what we will be using in all future DCs, and has already been deployed in FRA1, NYC1, and NYC3. We will also be adding this design into two more locations in the next few months. With this type of architecture, the DigitalOcean network will be able to continue to scale and serve our customers for many years to come.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"by Luca Salvatore","spans":[{"start":3,"end":17,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://twitter.com/_LucaNet"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2015-08-25","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"building-the-next-generation-of-digitalocean-networking"}}}]}}}