Any company delivering rich dynamic content must be able to easily control content freshness. Unfortunately, purging—the task of removing content from the globally distributed edge servers of a Content Delivery Network (CDN)—can be a slow, complex process with inconsistent results. When a purge takes too long to process, users are served stale or damaged content. Outdated information is publicized, corrupted files are downloaded, and compliance issues arise when commercial transactions are involved, and brand integrity can be severely compromised.
Limelight SmartPurge is the next-generation CDN purging system, specifically architected to execute purges rapidly and at global scale, without the hassle and limitations of traditional CDN purging methods. SmartPurge works in near realtime to remove stale content from the access path of users, regardless of how close they are to your data center. Its rich functionality is accessible programmatically via APIs or through a graphical user interface. Support staff is available 24/7/365 via phone and email to remedy purging issues as quickly as possible, providing total peace of mind in even the most urgent situations. Companies that utilize the advanced capabilities of SmartPurge are assured that users receive only the freshest content, thanks to a realtime feedback mechanism.
SmartPurge provides a number of compelling capabilities:
As soon as a request for purge is received, the purged content will stop being served to the end user; no delays or waiting in queue behind other CDN customers.
Patterns can include any portion of the Origin URL, path, fi lename or extension.
Content is tagged by providing an extra origin reply HTTP header. This will allow sophisticated cache management strategies to be implemented more easily and simplify integration.
The dry-run feature allows a purge request to collect statistics of the number of matching objects and object bytes without purging those objects.
SmartPurge is designed to ensure that when a request for purge is received, the purged content is never served to users—regardless of configurations or services being used.
Mass content purging can take place without inducing high levels of origin traffic. Before serving new requests for invalidated content, SmartPurge checks content freshness with your origin and does not request a full object if it is still fresh.
Any and all copies of purged content can be permanently deleted from the Limelight CDN. All requests are sent back to the origin to fetch new content.
Submitting and executing purge commands is simple. You can easily submit patterns instead of regular expressions, thus making the whole process intuitive.
Via API or user interface; you can access purge status, execution details, accounts, and users requesting purges.
All historical purge executions are stored for later reference, and can be used to create templates for future purges.
Upon a purge request, content will be immediately unavailable globally.
Cache tags introduce a new method to set the boundaries of a content purge. You now have the ability to define “Cache-Tag” headers with custom values. Multiple tags can be applied to a single piece of content to allow for categorization or segmentation of content. With the new purge by tag feature, SmartPurge can target individual or multiple tags for dry run, invalidation, or eviction.
Purging system architected to execute purges at global scale.
Dry run reduces the risk of running a purge by providing a view into the impact of a job before it’s run. During a dry run all of the objects are counted but none of them are invalidated or evicted. This can help prevent the impact of purging the wrong items.
Purge dashboards and history show purge status, execution details, and users requesting purges.