[rsmets]

Neat idea and the ease of use is certainly attractive! I have a question though...

Couldn't one simply use a traditional CDN where ever their customers are which would then allow the inbound network requests to jump on private interface routing to where ever the app truly lives quicker - essentially making for a more responsive "business logic" app feel? If all infrastructure was on the same cloud provider, say AWS.

I understand this approach is less dynamic in nature but would have been a solution for the Ars Technica problem presented I feel. If not, what am I missing? Thanks!

[mrkurt]

That's actually a good, generic way to speed up the initial app connections. You can even do it with a CDN in front of a backend on a different network, since most CDNs pool connections.

The problem is that everything useful a server side application does still requires round trips. Even for the most boring content, an 800ms delay is pretty normal if you have a spread out audience.