FastSpring Technical Infrastructure

Hosting

Store Servers

FastSpring's SpringBoard e-commerce platform utilizes a large number of carrier-grade Joyent store servers for optimal performance and redundancy. The hardware is high-performance, high-redundant RAID-based NAS storage with ZFS file system for optimal data integrity. Each server comes installed with large amount of DDR3 Memory, multiple CPU cores per machine, Intel® Xeon 5600 Processors using Intel's 5500 Chipset, Force 10 Routing, and Arista switches allowing 10GB/sec. core networking. Joyent deploys high-quality, brand-name hardware components. Joyent's customers include high-traffic, enterprise-level companies such as LinkedIn® and THQ®.

Common File Hosting

Hosting for common assets used in FastSpring stores (such as images and scripts) is optimized in the SpringBoard platform using global content delivery networks maintained by Google® and Amazon®. This allows faster page load times for stores around the globe.

File Download Hosting

File downloads are hosted using Amazon's S3® network, allowing secure and redundant storage for the downloadable files purchased within FastSpring stores. This intelligent outsourcing for data downloads into the Gigabyte range ensures that our core store hosting performance never suffers from high-volume download activity.

Uniform OS & Software Stack

SpringBoard's architecture benefits from a uniform file system, OS and software stack with common origins at Sun Microsystems® — the ZFS file system, OpenSolaris® operating system and Java® programming language. The shared origin and development of these components work to ensure a high degree of native compatibility within our technical infrastructure and optimal store performance.

Independent Monitoring

FastSpring uses a 3rd-party monitoring service as a second method of gaining insight into our servers' and stores' performance. This piece of our technical infrastructure allows an independent, detailed view of server and store uptime and other statistics. Over the last six months, the service has reported uptime of 99.94%, and this rate is consistent with the uptime rates experienced over the past few years.

One important part of this service is geographical testing, showing store performance for multiple locations around the world. It also provides host-independent advanced warning services, along with notification services to cell phones, SMS and email.

Globally-Distributed DNS

We deploy a globally-distributed 3rd-party DNS service with 100% uptime. This service enables enhanced speed of domain lookup and resolution across the globe, with built-in fail-safes for individual DNS nodes. A globally-distributed service for DNS resolution reduces latency, scales for audience size and geography, and provides an additional layer of security for web applications.

Hardware-Accelerated SSL

All FastSpring stores are served securely using high-grade Verisign SSL certificates. We deploy hardware-accelerated SSL as part of our technical infrastructure to speed up the secure transactions between server and client. Hardware acceleration of SSL speeds up the most computationally expensive part of an SSL session, the handshake, where server and client agree on a number of parameters that establish the security of the connection. Hardware acceleration of SSL results in faster page load times. FastSpring stores, in addition to serving pages using SSL, are in full complliance with the PCI Data Security Standard.

Term Detail & Definitions

Amazon S3 Storage Service

Amazon S3 provides a highly durable storage infrastructure designed for mission-critical and primary data storage. Objects are redundantly stored on multiple devices across multiple facilities in an Amazon S3 Region. To help ensure durability, Amazon S3 PUT and COPY operations synchronously store your data across multiple facilities before returning SUCCESS. Once stored, Amazon S3 maintains the durability of your objects by quickly detecting and repairing any lost redundancy. Amazon S3 also regularly verifies the integrity of data stored using checksums. If corruption is detected, it is repaired using redundant data. In addition, Amazon S3 calculates checksums on all network traffic to detect corruption of data packets when storing or retrieving data.

Carrier Grade

In telecommunication, a "carrier grade" or "carrier class" refers to a system, or a hardware or software component that is extremely reliable, well tested and proven in its capabilities. Carrier grade systems are tested and engineered to meet or exceed "five nines" high availability standards, and provide very fast fault recovery through redundancy (normally less than 50 milliseconds).

DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system built on a distributed database for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices worldwide.

Java

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle® Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode (class file) that can run on any Java Virtual Machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture. Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented language that is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.

PCI Data Security Standard

The PCI DSS is a multi-faceted security standard that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. This comprehensive standard is intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data. Most notably, PCI DSS-compliant merchants do not store cardholder data in electronic format. PCI DSS and related security standards are administered by the PCI Security Standards Council.

Solaris® & OpenSolaris

Solaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. It superseded their earlier SunOS in 1992. Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has been owned by Oracle Corporation since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010.

Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as DTrace, ZFS and Time Slider. Solaris supports SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Sun and other vendors. Solaris is registered as compliant with the Single Unix Specification.

OpenSolaris® is an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems, now a part of Oracle Corporation. OpenSolaris is a descendant of the UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) codebase developed by Sun and AT&T in the late 1980s.

SSL

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a cryptographic protocol that provides communications security over the Internet. SSL encrypts the segments of network connections above the Transport layer, using symmetric cryptography for privacy and a keyed message authentication code for message reliability.

ZFS

ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity (notably, protection against silent corruption and bit rot), support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of file system and volume management, snapshots and copy-on-write clones, continuous integrity checking and automatic repair, RAID-Z and native NFSv4 ACLs. ZFS originally stood for "Zettabyte File System" due to its ability to store 2⁵⁸ zettabytes, where each ZB is 2⁷⁰ bytes.

If you have any additional questions regarding FastSpring's technical infrastructure, please contact us at info@fastspring.com.

View Features & Services | Sign Up for FastSpring

Amazon® and Amazon S3® are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. Google® is a registered trademark of Google, Inc. Intel® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. LinkedIn® is a registered trademark of LinkedIn Corporation. Oracle® and Java® are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. Sun Microsystems®, Solaris® and OpenSolaris® are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation. THQ® is a registered trademark of THQ, Inc.