sQuidd.io gets power boost

As sQuidd.io turns almost 6 years old (yes, hard to believe: development work started in late 2012), we realized the underlying back-end technology was ...well.. starting to show its age. This was resulting in performance that had not kept up with the expectations of a more sophisticated and fast growing user base.

As a result, the sQuidd.io back-end Ruby-on-Rails application has recently undergone a pretty substantial remake:

For the technologically inclined:

• The  Ruby environment has been upgraded from Ruby v 1.8.3 to Ruby v. 2.3.3. 
• The  Rails environment has been upgraded from Rails 3.2 to Rails 5.1.6
• We are using a new category of instance types on our cloud provider DigitaOcean (or "Droplets", in their speak) with added CPU performance, RAM and faster SSD storage
• We have made some changes to the MySql database structure that result in faster query time, 

This effort was not just about keeping our technology up to date to prevent obsolescence. It has resulted in major user benefits , namely a remarkable increase in performance, both in web-based requests on its web site, and API requests from clients such as the OpenCPN sQuidd.io plugin.

Please note that, with a few minor exceptions, the user interface has not changed, so most of these changes will be invisible to you, the user. But you will certainly enjoy the fact that some pages now render in half of the time! 

With the opportunity, we have also rationalized and enhanced our APIs (Application Programming Interface) so that more and more applications can be developed on the sQuidd.io platform. More on this in an upcoming blog post but until then you can enjoy a sneak preview here.

Happy discovery!