Beekeeper app performance in China

Summary of potential issues for Beekeeper customers operating in China

The Beekeeper platform is challenged by multiple potential issues when used in China.

Operational instability including extensive delay to restriction of access which may have various local and/or international causes outside of the sphere of Beekeeper control may be experienced by the user of the Beekeeper platform. Users accessing from mainland China may be impacted as a result, whereas users in Hong Kong and Macau may remain mostly unaffected.

In assessed cases, the cause has not been identified as components and systems under direct control of Beekeeper, however, as the Beekeeper platform relies on the services of various third party companies as well as the internet as a whole, the impact is a lack of the Beekeeper service availability or a sub-optimal experience in using the Beekeeper platform hosted outside of China.

Downloading the Beekeeper app

• Due to unavailability of the Google Play Store in China, users may download the self-service app directly from Beekeeper instead of the Play Store. Here is how to do it.

Note: The notification function of the app may not operate properly as a result of the unavailability of the Google Play Store in China.

Datacenter Location

Currently, Beekeeper uses data centers in Ireland, Switzerland, Germany and in Oregon/US. All of these data centers are located at a considerable geographical distance from China and are impacted by local and international ISP's service deliveries, all significantly influencing the latency. For users of Beekeeper in China this means a considerably slower service than elsewhere in the world.

Impact on Beekeeper Usability

Based on conversations with our Customer Success Managers supporting customers in China, the main pain point so far seems to be latency. Our distribution workaround for downloading the Beekeeper app seems to have successfully mitigated the issue with the unavailability of Google Play store in China. Push notifications remain an issue, although have not been reported as an issue so far by our customers. Customers are reporting frequently on the topic of the general speed of interaction within the app, e.g. views that require a lot of time to load, such as content with media attachments. Chats in particular seem to be affected strongly due to latency.

Please use the link below to submit your request or reach out to your CSM if you have any questions or need support regarding the Beekeeper app’s performance in China.