At Flightsim.to we currently host over 6000 add-ons. Last weekend was quite a challenge for us. At peak times we had over 1000 parallel downloads running. Obviously, this was also due to the increased number of large sceneries being uploaded over the weekend. As long as the parallel downloads were kept within limits, our infrastructure had no problem delivering the downloads quickly. But the more people download something, the longer a download can take - as some of you unfortunately had to experience. That's because many people simultaneously share the resources of our network, which can lead to a overload.
How we deal with Slow Downloads
Last weekend showed us that we need to change our strategy in order to offer stable downloads even during peak hours. Fortunately, thanks to your continuous support we are able to to keep expanding our network. We have now been relying on Bunny.net for some time - a global CDN provider that ensures that you can download your files at lightning fast speeds, even during peaks. Bunnys incredible strong network helps us to deliver files to our visitors without compromise, being able to serve up to 150.000 requests a second, connected to a 30 Tbps backbone and a theoretical speed of 40 Gbit per download.
How we deliver files
To be able to cope with peaks, we are relying on a combination of Bunny's CDN, Edge Storage and Perma-Cache. In detail: Once a file is uploaded, it is stored on our main server. As soon as the first user downloads the file, a copy of the file is being stored on the Bunny network. At the same time, the file is automatically replicated around the world. Thanks to the global replication across 4 continents, Bunny's Edge Storage offers up to 5X faster download speeds and latencies compared to traditional storage. From now on, all future downloads will also benefit from the fast speeds of the Bunny network. Replication allows us to serve downloads from the nearest location possible, no matter from where you're downloading - let it be Germany, USA or India. However, since this technology is quite expensive, it automatically (and only) kicks in as soon as our traditional servers reach their capacity limits, which is usually during peak hours on evenings or weekends.
Why do we need your support?
Traffic and bandwidth are incredibly expensive these days. Currently, the industry standard price for a 1 GB download is $ 0.01. Doesn't sound like much, right? Well, it all depends. If your site hosts just a few files and has only few visitors, you won't pay much - of course, that behaves different with a website that has thousands of visitors, each of them up- and downloading more than only one file a day. At Flightsim.to, we currently have almost 1 terabyte of data stored. Our daily amount of traffic consumption varies between 5 and 10 TB and a single file is downloaded on average 100 times a day. Just imagine what that means for a scenery that is 1 GB in size. All in all, we have an average monthly traffic consumption of around 200 TB, at a price of $ 0.01 per GB, which quickly adds up to a four-digit dollar range. Sometimes less, sometimes more. That's why we are very grateful for your support. The donations we collect are our most important source of income, followed by the advertising revenue we have through the two simple banners on the site. There is no investor or big company behind Flightsim.to - and we're proud of that! It's the community support that makes it possible.
However, fortunately also Bunny has recognized our special needs for immense traffic and fast downloads and we are proud to have agreed on a partnership with them, allowing us to focus on our service. Here's to 4 million more downloads with you!