Before I delve into the meat of this post, Internet access is critical to what we (UNIXy) do. We are a fully managed server and cluster provider. The quality of service we offer is critical to our success. So it’s only natural we concert a continuous effort to improve the service on all fronts. Being fully staffed and accessible to our clients 24/7 is imperative. We must be available within short notice (e.g. < 10 minutes) at all times around the clock.

So Internet at 10000 feet means we don’t have to deal with temporary staffing shortages due to unplanned trips. But most importantly it means service quality remains consistent. Internet at 10k is even more important as we expand to different parts of the country and Europe. But in such a rough, high altitude environment there are so many things that can go wrong with the Wifi service. And it has. Southwest Airlines’ Wifi service is too unreliable to consider.

I’ll ask the pilot to reboot the system to see if it helps

On the other hand, Virgin America’s Wifi system powered by Gogo  LLC is very reliable. So this is the airline we’ve been booking with lately. While domestic flights have us covered, transatlantic connectivity has yet to materialize. 30000 feet is the new frontier. I’m confident that some day we’ll be back here reporting about how good it is to support our clients at 30k feet.

Cheers

We have big news about Black Friday! SO BIG, in fact that we’re not waiting until Friday to tell everyone. We have decided to make all dedicated and VPS servers available for $1 for the first month on Black Friday only! Get ready to contact sales@unixy.net to get full details on this deal.

**This deal is available for new orders only. This special cannot be applied to upgrades or used for current service.

I am proud to pre-announce our strategic expansion of Web hosting operations in Europe and in North Africa. Taking on this initiative is consistent with our vision to become a world-wide player in the managed server arena. More information will become available soon.

Varnish PHP bindings are useful for folks that need to manage Varnish from PHP. A palpable version of the extension code has finally been released. Keep in mind that the release is early beta. Nonetheless, the milestone is significant. So, what can one accomplish with the API?

Here’s a list of the most important function calls:

 stop
 start
 banUrl - Purge URL
 ban - Free form purge command
 isRunning - Boolean
 setPort - Set the admin port
 getSnapshot - Retrieve statistics snapshots
 getLine - Retrieve log entry

We are keeping a close eye on the development of the PHP Varnish extension and will update this page.

About UNIXY

UNIXY is a long-time Varnish Cache user and evangelist. They have been offering Varnish acceleration to their VPS, dedicated server, and cluster clients for more than three years. They have released the first cPanel Varnish plugin as well as spun a new startup,Fastlayer, the on-demand HTTP accelerator for the cloud.

That’s all folks!

Varnish, the state-of-the-art HTTP accelerator, v3.0 (up from v2.1.x) is scheduled to be released in a few hours. The folks at Varnish Cache have worked tirelessly to get the 3.0 release out of the door. Congratulations on work well done!

Here are some of the major changes and additions:

Plugin Support – VMOD

VMOD is to Varnish as loadable module is to a kernel.  The new Varnish provides a programmable interface that enables expanding the VCL (Varnish Configuration Language). This VMOD feature includes relatively advanced concepts like functions, pointers, and data types. I think this is the most complex piece to go in v3.0.

Streaming Support

This is a long awaited feature. Up until today, Varnish broke HTTP streaming slowing down adoption of the software in the multimedia space and content delivery. This feature makes it possible to accelerate HTTP streaming. Streaming is controlled via the boolean beresp.do_stream.

Compression and Decompression Support – ESI Twist

Having Varnish do compression and decompression adds flexibility and performance in one shot. The compression level is controllable via the variable gzip_level. With this feature, you can now compress what is not compressed should there be a legacy issue; Decompress on the fly for ESI and compress; Modify the compression level; Offload compression to a host of machines. And the list goes on…

Improved Documentation

The new Varnish boasts improved documentation that is “in much better shape than before.” This is excellent news because,  in my opinion, this used to be THE pain point.

About UNIXY

UNIXY is a long-time Varnish Cache user and evangelist. They have been offering Varnish acceleration to their clients for more than three years. They have released the first cPanel Varnish plugin as well as spun a new startup, Fastlayer, the on-demand HTTP accelerator for the cloud.

That’s all folks!

UNIXY is pleased to announce the release of Fastlayer, the HTTP accelerator for the cloud. For more information, visit fastlayer.com

The Fastlayer concept sprung to life from the need to provide HTTP acceleration and caching to a growing base of clients running disparate platforms. The software is modeled to work as a dedicated appliance platform with multi-tenant capabilities. Fastlayer provides the software and the client allocates the hardware (or virtual machine). But allow me backtrack a bit and start from the beginning.

Several years ago, UNIXy, a fully managed hosting services firm, started offering Varnish Cache to clients as demand for such software grew immensely. A few years later, they built a limited set of tools to automate installation and support. UNIXy supports a large set of control panels. In fact, the firm supports all third party software. Support became even more challenging at that point.

Then comes the cPanel Varnish Plugin, which offered installation, management, and integration with the well known Web hosting control panel cPanel WHM. It was followed a few months later by the DirectAdmin Varnish Plugin; ad nauseam.

Fastlayer to the rescue

Here we are today having built Fastlayer. Third party application support is no longer a concern for clients that need acceleration and caching. Fastlayer acts as an acceleration layer and can host hundreds of host names (virtual hosts). It’s manageable and API-enabled so it’s programmable.

How to obtain Fastlayer

We are currently undergoing beta testing of the product with a diverse set of cloud operators,  Web service providers, and individuals. Fastlayer is always looking to reach out to more folks and organizations so be sure to contact us.