How Global Eyewear Marketplace Firmoo uses Zenlayer and AWS to Accelerate Across Borders
Firmoo is a leading cross-border eyewear marketplace serving over 1 million customers globally and ranks among the top global eyewear providers. The company mainly serves customers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific, and has Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers in North America, Europe, and Hong Kong.
For a company like Firmoo, digital experience is a big deal. After all, ecommerce is ultra-competitive, and customers today expect flawless experiences when making online purchases and downloading content. But providing high-quality digital experience is not always easy. Issues like lag and poor internet quality are very common, and often cause them to abandon carts and look elsewhere for products.
When Firmoo realized these issues were taking place on its platform, the company needed to act. So the company turned to Zenlayer, a global edge cloud services provider offering on-demand connectivity across 300 global PoPS, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a joint solution.
Read on to learn how Zenlayer and AWS are working together to help Firmoo accelerate across borders and serve customers more efficiently.
Firmoo’s main challenges
Firmoo had two main scenarios that it needed to address.
Scenario 1: Sellers located in China use Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to upload video streams to overseas servers. But OBS causes significant lag and doesn’t support real-time interactions for buyers. The company needed to accelerate servers connecting sellers to key destinations in the U.S., Germany, and Hong Kong. And due to the distributed nature of the company’s sellers, Firmoo couldn’t deploy traditional acceleration devices.
Scenario 2: Due to poor internet quality, it can take several minutes to download a log file of only a few MB. Because of this, downloads often fail. This makes it very difficult for O&M and R&D staff to update and maintain the company’s AWS servers which are located overseas.
Solution 1: Zenlayer Global Accelerator (ZGA)
In the first scenario, Zenlayer provides expedited Cname access to Firmoo using Zenlayer Global Accelerator (ZGA), which is a global network acceleration service that runs on Zenlayer’s massive global private infrastructure.
Firmoo’s domain name managers then add Cname data to the trading platform’s domain name on its management platform and use the GSLB system to achieve global intelligent DNS resolution.
Any time a domestic seller visits the trading platform and begins live streaming, the DNS server automatically routes traffic to Zenlayer’s domestic PoP according to the IP corresponding to the domain name Cname. And based on the background configuration, the server then pushes the video stream through Zenlayer’s global backbone network to the U.S., Germany or Hong Kong to provide access to the source site.
In this case, the combination of a global backbone network and ZGA prevent the company from having to engage in long distance transmissions. It also eliminates performance issues like delay, lag, and packet loss — leading to seamless real-time interactions between sellers and buyers.
The improved trading experience also increases customer trust in Firmoo’s global e-commerce platform and brings continuous and stable traffic to the company.
Key Takeaways
· Deploying ZGA is fast and simple, and only takes about half a day to set up.
· Migration doesn’t impact end users. There is no need to install any software or hardware.
· The global backbone network offers stable, high-quality connectivity.
Solution 2: Private access gateway + firewall
For the second scenario, Firmoo leverages a private access gateway instance in the China node of the global acceleration platform. Firmoo also uses a firewall in the Chongqing office to create a tunnel to Zenlayer’s global backbone network through an IPSec VPN.
Zenlayer now runs DX connections to all 23 AWS regions worldwide. In addition, Firmoo has virtual connections to several AWS regions in the U.S., Germany, and Hong Kong. The Zenlayer backbone network and Firmoo’s VPC connect via VIF.
As the above graphic demonstrates, Zenlayer’s global backbone network creates a private connection channel and intranet that extends across Firmoo’s Chongqing office and its overseas AWS servers. When O&M and R&D personnel access the VPC through this channel, they can avoid having to transmit data long distance over the public internet. This significantly boosts productivity and efficiency.
Key Takeaways
· The global backbone network offers private lines for stable quality and high speeds.
· Overseas PoPs use DX to connect directly to VPC, resulting in higher quality last mile connectivity.
· Firmoo now has a variety of access methods, and offers flexible choices for users.
Results
Thanks to its partnership with AWS and Zenlayer, Firmoo’s website is now much more stable and responsive than in the past.
Customers now have stronger live viewing experiences and report greater overall satisfaction. The company is also having an easier time generating revenue.
Want to see Zenlayer and AWS in action? Have a look at Firmoo for yourself, and notice the difference in load times compared to other sites!
About AWS & Zenlayer’s joint solution
Here is a is a brief overview of how Zenlayer and AWS work together to help customers like Firmoo, as in addition to a variety of other use cases.
End-users today often experience poor quality and lag when accessing content across gaming platforms, live streaming platforms, transaction engines, e-commerce websites, and internal systems. Poor connectivity also impacts third-party applications like AWS Chime, Simple Cloud Storage Service (S3), AppStream, Workspace, IoT Core, and GitHub.
In short, it typically takes too long to download data from servers, resulting in repeated interruptions and failures. Slow data synchronization is common between servers on and off the cloud, and between regional clouds. Synchronization time often exceeds the acceptable range for most businesses.
Zenlayer helps end-users reach global AWS source locations through local nodes, using high-speed, low-latency channels and intelligent routing. This greatly reduces lagging and latency, granting users instant access to digital applications and services regardless of their location.
Zenlayer and AWS share the same vision of bringing fast and reliable connectivity into global markets. Together, the two companies are helping businesses generate high speed connectivity to the cloud. The partnership jointly accelerates technological innovation and development, improves overall business operations, and enhances digital experiences for worldwide clients.
How customers benefit from Zenlayer and AWS
Stronger revenue: The joint solution guarantees smooth, real-time content delivery for games, live streams, financial transaction engines, online education, e-commerce websites, and internal enterprise systems. This significantly improves the end-user experience, leading to continuous and stable revenue.
Lower complexity: Thanks to the joint solution, clients can focus more on business development instead of worrying aobut connectivity. Zenlayer’s secure, reliable, and cost-effective services grant extremely fast inter-cloud interoperability. In addition, Zenlayer eliminates issues like lagging, display errors, and dropouts for all types of applications. Clients also benefit from faster file transfer speeds and reduced web page load times, for more effective collaboration and operational efficiency.
Lower costs: The dynamic expansion of edge nodes brings client services closer to end-users. This eliminates the need to replicate source site content and avoids costly and time-consuming construction.
More efficient operations: The solution provides stable data management and high-speed transmissions. This reduces backend work for O&M personnel and developers and prevents downtime. As a result, staff members can focus on more pressing tasks.
Easy to order: Businesses can purchase the solution directly through the AWS Marketplace. The ordering procedure is convenient and supports bill consolidation.
Accelerate with Zenlayer and AWS
AWS customers can register for ZGA through the AWS Marketplace. Metered and bandwidth billing options are available.
For more information about ZGA, visit the product page or sign up for a free trial today.
