CloudFlare question

I recently switched some of my sites to VPS at OVH Canada and while I see decent page loading times for Ontario and Quebec, everywhere else in the world the loading times are much worse than before the move.
I am considering using CloudFlare to mitigate this, yet I am wondering whether CF can be configured the way that content in Ontario and Quebec is served bypassing CF and everywhere else is via CF?

 

I don't think it is possible. once you integrate CDN (maxcdn or CF)into your website, your website will be cached by their server around the globe and these servers will serve your visitors in any part of the globe once they access your website.

If you want faster speeds, you should opt for cloudflare pro or Maxcdn.

I'm not sure which hosting provider have you opted for. What is your current website loadtime?

 

Thanks, I'll consider these.

 

Depending on what VPS solution you selected from OVH and cost, some limitations may be in place on the connection speed(s). One thing I always bring up when speaking about virtualization technologies that people don't consider is the average node will have a 1Gbps uplink that is shared between hundreds of VPS containers and possibly tens of thousands of websites. You aren't going to get as good of a connection speed utilizing a VPS as you would on a Dedicated Server or even some Shared Hosting solutions (Yes, I am trying to say that under certain circumstances a good Shared Hosting package will out-perform some VPS solutions). Budget is the key word here.

 

You are absolutely right, after switching to OVH Canada VPS (VPS Cloud package) from GoDaddy shared hosting I see only 5% decrease of average page loading time in Ontario but 25% increase in page loading time in USA and 50% increase for Europe and Asia. Considering that paying customers for this website are in Ontario and TTFB there for OVH hosting in Montreal is 20% less than with GoDaddy hosting in Phoenix I am going to keep the site at OVH, but to mitigate the problem with other geo areas I am now considering CDN...

 

Cloudflare will increase your page loading times because they cache your content and then load it from the closest server. I don't believe that you can bypass cloudflare for places in canada. But don't quote me on that you might be able to

 

I have also noticed when you go to a page that has Cloudflare that they use a landing page to filter out the "bad" traffic. May or may not work from a user perspective side depending on what kind of visitors/site you have.

 

We've been using OVH too for 8 years and guess what? Just 2 months ago we finally moved a very high traffic site we maintained to Amazon.
We have a dedicated one that we paid for 90 Euro, we stick to it because we had a really powerful server since we bought it long-time ago and we wanted to kept the specs which is no longer available in the new server of OVH for the same price.

THE PAIN

-No proper support, i mean it always took them 3-5 days to reply to a critical ticket. Seriuosly? I tried contacting the phone support, it's useless. I've suffered for 8 years, if it was not for the specs i would have quit. No other server can give me the same specs for the same price, it is always double so it is quiet pricey.
-It is a pain update the server, it always worry me.. It always break something... so I only updated it twice a year...
-My site will crash everyday at 2pm for 5 seconds, hmmm...even my server guy can't explain, talked to OVh about it-response is not helpful.
-We have a very high traffic site and we can't just put it down when we update...often crash my site if i update something.. We always schedule a weeked to update and backup stuff is quiet a nightmare.

-The most frustrating part.. 2 years ago..our server was deleted.. everyting all backups and site..it was emptied..And I am the only one who has access to it and OVH can't explain. Luckily i jave a backup in my local office computer and i only lost 3 weeks of data which is huge but atleast i have something to restore. BE VERY CAREFUL.


Now, we moved to Amazon... We have a small plan and everything is super fast.
Our site page speed was always 4s-5s within EU and US and 10s for australia.. I have an Amazon now the micro plan, it is even smaller than my previous OVH specs, it loads from ms-2s for EU and US and 3s for AU...
What a great improvement and decision we have this year.

Amazon EC2

-Cheaper - And guess what, our last month billing was even smaller than we have paid from OVH. And i do not need a server guy anymore to help us update and make sure everything works.
-Easy to backup server - when i want to update something..i copy the server and do a simulation from there... No extra expenses anymore to pay for server guy
-easy to upgarde server when it is busy and downgrade when traffic is low