Overview
Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions section, a list of common questions asked by our customers. It is a great place to start if you have questions about how to use your CDN account and how to work with the features of our product.
Analytics
What are Network Usage, Storage Usage, and Storage in Use metrics?
Network Usage shows the total bytes transferred for each service (CDS and FMS) since the last billing event.
For CDS, this value reports all HTTP traffic (including video progressive download) delivered for this account.
For FMS, this value reports the true streaming traffic delivered for this account.
Network usage rolls up, meaning these numbers show total delivery for the CDN account as well as all sub-accounts. Network Usage is updated upon StrikeTracker login.
Storage Usage shows the daily summation of total storage used for each service since the last billing event, measured in Gigabytes (GB). When this number is divided by days since the last bill event, the result is the average storage used on the CDN.
Account owners use this number to see the trending monthly storage average and estimate the storage bill. Storage Usage rolls up and tallies over time, meaning the Gigabytes are accumulated from a daily summation of Storage In Use for the CDN account and all sub-accounts.
If an account owner wants to know how much data is stored on the CDN account currently, use Storage In Use (described next). The StrikeTracker value for Storage Usage is updated daily.
Interpreting Storage Usage Consider a CDN account with no sub-accounts and 5GB of data files stored on the CDN where no new files are added and no existing files are purged. If the CDN account is billed on the last day of the month, then Storage Usage shows 5GB on the first day of the new month, 10GB on the second day of the new month, 15GB on the third day of the new month, and so on. At the end of a new 30 day month, when the account is ready to be billed again, the account shows 150GB Storage Usage (5GB * 30 days).
Billing for Storage The billing event applies the Storage amount specified in the Service Class to the Storage Usage. The Service Class must be created with a price point that is Price per GB per billing cycle/days in the billing cycle. If the customer is intended to be billed at $8.00 per 30 days month per GB, the Service Class needs to specify $0.27 ($8/30).
Storage in Use shows the total storage currently in use for the account ID, is shown as a line item for each CDN service and is measured in Gigabytes (GB). Storage In Use is measured in 1GB increments, rounded up. This value reports what is stored currently on the CDN. Note that Storage In Use does not roll up from sub-accounts. To view storage for a sub-account, navigate to the Sub Account tab and the By Storage Usage view. The StrikeTracker value for Storage In Use is updated daily.
What is the "Completion Ratio"?
Completion Ratio is the percentage of bytes of the file that is sent to the client. If a file is 2 MB and 1MB is downloaded and then stopped, the completion ratio would be 50%.
Origin Pulls
Can I have multiple origins pulls configured?
You can have one Origin Pull per product (CDS, FMS) per account. If you need additional origin pulls we suggest that you create sub-accounts and utilize those for each pull that is needed.
How do you expire content, and how can I force a check for updates?
The following Expire methods are used: Cache-Control, Ingest, Last Request, Last Modify, and Never Expire.
- Cache-Control: We will use the HTTP headers to set a time of when to expire the content.
- Ingest: We will expire the content a set number of seconds after the file is ingested.
- Last Request: We will expire the content a set number of seconds after the last time the file was requested.
- Never Expire: We will never expire the files.
Expiration behavior is such that when a file becomes expired it will continue to live on the CDN. The next time a request comes into the CDN we will do an origin request and compare the Last-Modified dates. If they are the same, we utilize the file already on the CDN and reset the expire timer. This reduces the load on the origin and provides faster service for the client.
Raw Access Logs
How do I obtain Raw Access Logs?
Once enabled by a request to support@highwinds.com, you can obtain your raw access logs by logging into <account hash>.logs.hwcdn.net via FTP after the first statistics are recorded to the portal. This can take up to 20 minutes after you access your content the first time. Your user name and password are the same as the one you currently use to access the StrikeTracker portal. They are organized by product, then date. The logs are in parts - either 15MB or a 15-minute window. As soon as a log reaches 15MB in size a new log will be created. If 15 minutes have passed without reaching 15mb, a new log will be created.
How long are Raw Access Logs saved for?
Raw logs are kept for 45 days before they are deleted.
What program(s) can I use to parse and analyze Raw Access Logs?
Raw logs are W3C standard compliant. Any software designed to read such files can utilize our logs. We suggest Sawmill as one such solution.
What information is available in the Raw Access Logs?
We include the Request Date, Request Time, File Name, Request Method (Get, Head), Referrer, User Agent, File Size, Bytes Downloaded, and Range of Bytes Requested.
Security
What is the best way to protect my content?
The best way to secure your content is to use the token authentication product we call URL Signing. URL Signing can be used on any content, it is DMCA compliant, and it is the best way to prevent link sharing, deep linking, hot-linking, and any other unauthorized usage of your content.
How do I enable URL Signing?
Send a request to support@highwinds.com containing your account ID, the folder you wish to apply URL Signing to, and the parameters that you wish to utilize for the signing.
Uploading Content - Using FTP
What is the FTP URL?
Full upload and management of content can be done using the FTP URL: upload.hwcdn.net. Customers in the EU can use upload.eu.hwcdn.net as a dropbox but need to use upload.hwcdn.net to manage content.