Photo Seller – CDN Photo Delievery

[epuppet]

I currently host all pictures in all sizes on my CDN. This creates the photo in the media section and I link it in the gallery of photo seller. Does photo seller link to the local copy or the cdn copy. Or am I over-thinking this whole function. I cannot tell where it is actually pulling the photo from, hopefully my cdn for speed.

[admin]

It will do a combination of both. The plugin needs to manipulate the image to add watermark, create thumbnails, security (to your main image) and those tasks can only be done on the server. After an watermarked version of an image is created (for example), that image will be pulled from the CDN when visitors view that image.

[muleymadness]

I have a question, what’s the difference between CDN (Cloudfront) and S3 for example?

[Peter]

Hi muleymadness,

We have a customer (jonathonfowler) successfully using CDN with photo seller and I think that might be a viable solution for you too. It appears that you can store all of your images off-site and consequently save space and speed up your site.

I personally don’t know enough about it because have never used it but some quick googling revealed plenty of info, eg,

[http://john.onolan.org/how-to-use-a-cdn-with-wordpress/]

[muleymadness]

Thanks Peter,

I’ll take a look and see if this is something that I can get to work for me. But I thought the same thing after seeing this thread. Not quite understanding how CDN works but S3 doesn’t but I’ll take a look.

[muleymadness]

well I tried to use Amazon S3/Cloudfront approach and it fails upon saving to gallery. I am able to upload a image file and it will pull it from S3 but when I try to save the gallery it errors out on watermark saving and thus creates no thumbnail, watermark, and I can’t view the image at all. So back to the drawing board. Any ideas how customer (jonathonfowler) did this?

[Peter]

I have asked “jonathonfowler” and am waiting for him to get back to me.

In the meantime did you read the link I provided earlier regarding the CDN usage with wordpress?

[http://john.onolan.org/how-to-use-a-cdn-with-wordpress/]

I have a feeling the above will explain exactly what you should do to store your images offboard to a CDN. (This also sounds like something that jonathonfowler might being doing too)

[muleymadness]

Yes I did read that several times, I’m just not sure that’s the correct solution either or will work with your plugin which is my issue. It appears on of the files are still stored on my server also, which defeats the purpose of saving space. Can’t just have them stored in both places and then pulled from CDN.

[Peter]

Re: the CDN solution – I think the storage on local host is meant to be as a backup and possibly you can delete the local images as long as you are pointing your site correctly to the CDN.

Perhaps you can do some more research on the CDN solution and ask a few questions on the relevant websites?

[jonathonfowler]

Hi there,

I use MaxCDN in conjunction with W3 Total Cache plugin. You still host your files on your own server, but you use W3TC to speed up your site.

When using W3TC with MaxCDN, when a site visitor clicks on your images or pages, W3TC sends the files to MaxCDN to cache.

MaxCDN have servers around the world, what happens is your cached files are served faster than using your local server on its own.

The reduction in page load times can be significant when everything is set up properly. Get it wrong and it can be slower. But there’s plenty of help available, MaxCDN have live help available to assist if you run into problems.

MaxCDN do not backup your files, all they do is cache a copy on their servers. You cannot access these files, or take a backup from them, that’s not the service they provide. All they do is speed up delivery of your content (hence the name, Content Delivery Network).

[muleymadness]

jonathonfowler,

I appreciate the feedback and information, really do. Unfortunately this is still not a viable solution to my problem. Which is storage size on my server. I simple don’t have room to store the files I’m uploading on my server and need them store/pulled off server. So I’m still back to square one for a real solution for my needs.

[jonathonfowler]

The only way I get more server space is by paying more, currently running at 30GB of storage. Not sure of a high performance service which is free/cheap….if you find it, please do let me know!

[muleymadness]

jonathonfowler,

I wish I did know of one. I may have to resort to Flickr somehow and abandon this whole idea I’ve been working on. Maybe we could pull the original file from Flickr somehow, they give you a TON of storage for FREE.

[Author]

Posts