Open source developers enjoy fast, reliable support with PyPI and Fastly

The challenge

The Python Software Foundation’s (PSF's) small staff is responsible for ensuring that the Python community's millions of members can reliably access the software downloads, code, and documentation they need. With 66 petabytes of traffic per month, it’s a massive job for a small group of engineers. To bring that task down to size, PSF turned to Fastly.

The solution

Fastly's global CDN allows PSF to scale its service reliably without exhausting the 501(c)(3) nonprofit's limited resources. Getting started was quick and easy—Ee Durbin, Director of Infrastructure for PSF, described it as "snap-of-the-finger onboarding." With Fastly, The Python Package Index (PyPI) has a 99% cache-hit ratio and over 1.2 trillion requests through their Fastly-sponsored CDN, averaging ~36k requests per second. This means their 800,000 users get a fast, reliable experience, while PSF benefits from reduced use of energy, bandwidth, and computation power and savings in egress charges - resulting in a 2023 total of 284+ billion downloads for the half million projects on PyPI (over 10 million files)!

Fast Forward program helps PSF maximize resources

PSF adopted Fastly through the Fast Forward program, a Fastly initiative to provide free services to eligible open source projects and the nonprofit organizations sustaining them. Fast Forward aims to support the people at the forefront of building an open, equitable internet, which made PSF an obvious partner for the program.

"Fastly has been a great way to get an impactful result with minimal effort," said Durbin. "The time and resources we have to put into our services are minimal, thanks to Fastly, so we've been able to put more resources into the Python community." PSF also benefits from Fastly's egress partnership with an object storage provider. "By taking advantage of that partnership, we've been able to be much better stewards of credits. Rather than spending on egress, we've used credits to spin up and support new services for users." Durbin said.

Fastly Fiddle facilitates development

Another way Fastly makes it easier for PSF to deliver for users is Fastly Fiddle. The browser-based prototyping tool lets the PSF team try out configurations in a Fastly environment and see how it works before implementing it, which allows for rapid experimentation and reduces the engineering time spent on problem solving. "Fastly Fiddle is the tool we always reach for when we're trying to figure something out," Durbin said. "It is the only way we can make certain decisions about which direction to take or determine whether something is even possible."

Fastly security keeps PyPI open but not overburdened

PyPI offers free access without authentication, leaving it more open to problematic traffic, whether malicious or accidental. Fastly helps PSF project PyPI from being overtaxed by irrelevant requests while keeping the site available for a worldwide community of users. "We're really excited about Fastly's technology for detecting bots or automations that have gone wild. It helps protect our backend, and it also helps us be more diligent users of our resources—not just our bandwidth, but the electricity and carbon we use," said Durbin.

The future with Fastly

PSF has plans to further develop the role Fastly plays in its stack. Durbin said the organization is exploring how Compute will make it easier to add more automation and how DDoS mitigation will help keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape. "Our goal is not just to run our own services but to provide a place for the Python community to run its services in a platform-as-a-service environment," Durbin said. Fastly's donation of free services through Fast Forward will help make that possible.

Key takeaway

Fastly's CDN and security solutions allow PSF to focus on supporting the Python community rather than traffic management. And because PSF is part of the Fast Forward program, the organization can use more of its limited resources toward its mission. "Fastly single handedly made it possible for our infrastructure to provide the quality of service it has for the past decade—and to do it for a long time with no committed staff," Durbin said. "Fastly was truly my guardian angel."