An Intellyx BrainCandy
Retailers lose $2.6 billion in revenue each year to slow websites. A reduction of 0.5 seconds in website response time reduces sales conversions by 11%. These are just two, but there are countless statistics just like them that make the point abundantly clear: there is a direct correlation between website and web app performance and business outcomes. And that’s not even counting the broader and arguably more important impact that performance has on the overarching customer experience. As a result, enterprises have invested in (and must maintain) a dizzying array of infrastructure elements, including Content Distribution Networks (CDNs), load balancers, and optimized web servers to try to eke out better performance. But as we reach a point of diminishing returns, one organization thinks it’s time to reimagine the development approach and deployment architecture itself.
Netlify, with its Jamstack architecture, has ambitions to “disrupt the web” and claims to be on the way to doing so. It counts over one million developers using the platform and says that 12% of internet users visit at least one Netlify-powered website each month. The company’s architecture essentially collapses and abstracts web infrastructure into a globally-distributed edge network. The company claims that this approach dramatically improves website — and developer — performance.
On the website side of the equation, it says that the elimination of web servers and the deployment of code to the edge enables it to dramatically decrease response times and overall performance. For developers, it simplifies the process, allowing them to effectively perform a commit and deploy into production in one-step without having to navigate the infrastructure gauntlet. While simplicity and improved developer productivity have been the company’s calling cards, its ability to help enterprises deliver a more performant website experience, while reducing the friction of change may be its most important advantage.
©2020 Intellyx LLC. Intellyx advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. At the time of this writing, none of the companies mentioned are Intellyx customers. To be considered for a Brain Candy article, email us at pr@intellyx.com.
