BackBlaze + CloudFlare Implementation in IPS4

[TwinTurbo]

Hello everyone,

 

I read about the guide made by @ASTRAPI on integrating BackBlaze + CloudFlare with IPS4. 

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/459262-community-guide-on-setting-up-backblaze-and-cloudflare/

 

I read through the guide and it seems there are some potential issues with attachments and downloads that might need workarounds. 

Since the IPS4 mod directory is phased out (I couldn't see the mod referred in the article), my question is: has anyone done this integration (BackBlaze + CloudFlare) and what types of workarounds are required to make it fully work with IPS4. 

And is there any plan for this integration to be supported natively with IPS5. Native support for all the popular object storage (CloudFlare R2 / BackBlaze / Wasabi / other providers) would be ideal. 

And I would also like to get your suggestions on other possible storage provider choices. [ Acc. to my research, BackBlaze's $5/TB/month seems to be solid value. Did read about Wasabi (slightly higher pricing than BackBlaze but seems to have had stability issues in the past) ]

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it a lot .

 

Regards,

TwinTurbo. 

Edited February 2 by TwinTurbo

[JoelR]

22 hours ago, TwinTurbo said:

Hello everyone,

 

I read about the guide made by @ASTRAPI on integrating BackBlaze + CloudFlare with IPS4. 

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/459262-community-guide-on-setting-up-backblaze-and-cloudflare/

 

I read through the guide and it seems there are some potential issues with attachments and downloads that might need workarounds. 

Since the IPS4 mod directory is phased out (I couldn't see the mod referred in the article), my question is: has anyone done this integration (BackBlaze + CloudFlare) and what types of workarounds are required to make it fully work with IPS4. 

And is there any plan for this integration to be supported natively with IPS5. Native support for all the popular object storage (CloudFlare R2 / BackBlaze / Wasabi / other providers) would be ideal. 

And I would also like to get your suggestions on other possible storage provider choices. [ Acc. to my research, BackBlaze's $5/TB/month seems to be solid value. Did read about Wasabi (slightly higher pricing than BackBlaze but seems to have had stability issues in the past) ]

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it a lot .

 

Regards,

TwinTurbo. 

You're going to need a private plugin created by @All Astronauts in order to utilize an S3 compatible storage. 

By default, Invision Community is designed to work with Amazon S3.  

[TwinTurbo]

1 hour ago, JoelR said:

You're going to need a private plugin created by @All Astronauts in order to utilize an S3 compatible storage. 

By default, Invision Community is designed to work with Amazon S3. 

Got it, will send him a message. 

Between Wasabi and BackBlaze, which one would you choose? (I read about Wasabi having stability issues). 

Another thing is the upload speeds: How to get the best possible upload experience for the user (Let's say the user uploads a 2 gig video file, while using BackBlaze / CloudFlare R2 / Wasabi), how to optimize the tech stack / tech implementation to get the best upload speed for the user? [From my understanding and reading, having the cloud storage server location closer to the user helps. And an assumption would be that CloudFlare R2 should have better upload speeds since CloudFlare peers with most of the ISP's and has a vast network of CDN). 

And regarding the video player, which HTML5 video players are good for UI customization and functionality feature set. I am looking for a few main things (customizable UI, forward backward 10 seconds feature). 

 

Thank you for your assistance, I appreciate it a lot. 

[JoelR]

I use Wasabi.  It did have stability several years ago, but it's been fine for several years now.  It grew too fast in the early days.  

For HTML 5 players, if I remember there is only one mod by @Nathan Explosion. 

Overall, if your goal is to grow a video streaming site, I would caution you. Invision Community is not designed for video streaming.  The user downloads the files, and then simply plays back to the user,  similar to how a user downloads a PDF. There is no built-in technology designed for streaming, encoding, bandwidth buffering, etc.  This sounds like a very interesting project though! 

[TwinTurbo]

Thank you for the input about Wasabi. 

It's not going to be a full fledged video streaming site. Just some user uploaded videos, that's about it. The cloud object storage just allows for more freedom in managing storage requirements without being locked into the server hosting plan. 

[JoelR]

Totally agree.  On my main community (not Invisioneer), it's very media heavy and I store hundreds of gigabytes in Wasabi.  If I stored on Amazon, it would be hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.  

The benefit of the Backblaze + Cloudflare setup is not so much the savings on the storage, but the savings on bandwidth.  

[TwinTurbo]

If I am not mistaken, Wasabi is also part of the CloudFlare bandwidth alliance. Do you pay for egress costs on Wasabi?

I see that on Wasabi's website there's no egress fees and also no API calls fees. That's pretty nice. Both BackBlaze B2 and CloudFlare R2 charge for API calls based on Class A / Class B / Class C. 

Edited February 3 by TwinTurbo

[JoelR]

No egress fees on Wasabi, which is why the setup is so good.  I literally only pay for storage.  

[TwinTurbo]

On 2/4/2024 at 1:06 AM, JoelR said:

Totally agree.  On my main community (not Invisioneer), it's very media heavy and I store hundreds of gigabytes in Wasabi.  If I stored on Amazon, it would be hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.  

The benefit of the Backblaze + Cloudflare setup is not so much the savings on the storage, but the savings on bandwidth.  

Hey @JoelR,

I would like to your insight on one aspect of using @All Astronauts mod : 

I read something about the testing he made for the mod in his website and he mentions about testing with small files and not more than 100 mb uploads. 

My thought process for using Invision + BackBlaze looks like this:

Here's how I envision the process flow to look like:

IPS4 --> user uploads a video --> video stored in BackBlaze B2 --> when others play that video --> video is served from BackBlaze B2 via CloudFlare. 

Given this, do you think I would run into any chunking issues / upload issues while a user uploads a video that's around 3 GB - 4 GB in size?

And would there be any issues during playback (I think there shouldn't be much issues during playback as it's being handled by CloudFlare, but will would like to know your thoughts on this). 

[JoelR]

55 minutes ago, TwinTurbo said:

Given this, do you think I would run into any chunking issues / upload issues while a user uploads a video that's around 3 GB - 4 GB in size?

You would be serving from BackBlaze via your Cloudflare proxy exactly as you mentioned.  

But if you're using Cloudflare as a proxy on any plan except the enterprise , Cloudflare will impose a 100 MB upload limit.  I've reinforced this limit in my community (by capping download files at 100 MB, for example).  

https://community.cloudflare.com/t/upload-size/386443

In terms of the user experience, just be aware that your IPS system will be downloading the entirety of that file of 3 GB and 4 GB.  It's not seamless video streaming with fancy multi-encoding, variable bitrate, etc.  It's a simple file downsize to the user's browser, as in, the user must download the full 3 GBs before it will start playing.  IPS is not a video delivery system.  It's a file system of simple uploads and downloads.  Just want to be very clear about that.    

[TwinTurbo]

Got it, thank you for the insight about the 100 MB upload limit.

Will explore the video delivery part a bit and see how it goes. 

[JoelR]

By the way I foudn this as a (paid) Cloudflare service:

https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/more-dashboard-apps/cloudflare-stream/delivering-videos-with-cloudflare/