Always fresh, cacheable content using Cache Tags, Purge and Akamai.

This presentation will demonstrate a strategy to have "always cacheable" content using cache variations orchestrated via Drupal and provide "always fresh" content via Drupal cache tag invalidation, purge and Akamai CDN.

We'll explain how we built a performant, scalable system designed to handle hundreds of sites with complex pages hosted the globe and run through complex cache invalidation scenarios and considerations. We'll show how to configure a long TTL using a practical demo using Drupal, Purge, Varnish and CDN configuration and we'll walk through some challenges and gotchas.

What's covered:
* A short overview of caching with Drupal’s cache tags and using the Purge module.
* Review requirements common to large platforms (multi-site, authentication, cache variations).
* How we engineered a solution to solve CDN constraints with a limited number of cache tags and header size.
* How to configure/implement long-term TTLs (> 1 month) and orchestrate via Drupal.
* How we extended the purge module to invalidate the right things at the right time.
* How we solved queueing, performance issues and optimised our release processes.
* You'll see a practical demonstration with Drupal, Varnish and Akamai.

For who:
* Technical product owners or architects who want their sites to be performant, resilient and always fresh.
* Developers who need to implement a robust cache invalidation strategy using Drupal.
* DevOps engineers who want to offload requests to the CDN.

While the session will focus on Akamai CDN, many of the challenges, concepts and solutions are agnostic and relevant for any other CDN platform.