This is MediaTemple’s sales page for their TrueSpeed™ CDN, which is a rebranded product operated by SiteLock.com:

MediaTemple TrueSpeed CDN Sales Page

Sounds great & what a deal, right? I thought so. Note the “integrated control panel”. Here’s what you actually get for the control panel:

Only having on/off & purge-all controls is not the right way to manage a CDN, in the same way that driving using only the ignition switch & yelling “get the fuck out!” to all passengers is not the right way to drive a bus.

Hopefully this guy from the TrueSpeed CDN sales page is designing a new control panel.

This guy on MediaTemple’s CDN sales page is no doubt hard at work designing a real control panel.

With MediaTemple’s TrueSpeed CDN there are no traffic stats or reporting, & no asset purge controls except for all-or-nothing.

I had been using Edgecast ProCDN (through MediaTemple) which has a real control panel with nice purge controls & very detailed traffic stats/reporting.

If you sign up for the same CDN through SiteLock.com & not via MediaTemple, you get a much more capable control panel with all the features you’d expect for managing a CDN, but you’ll probably pay more than $30/month.

I think MediaTemple’s TrueSpeed CDN is still a good deal & no doubt they have plenty of customers who don’t need CDN stats or any real controls.

But MediaTemple should be far more upfront about what customers actually get for the “integrated control panel”. Maybe they should call it what it is: “integrated on/off/purge buttons”.

In lieu of MediaTemple being upfront about it, now you know!