FOCUS CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS
Issue 11, Aug/Sept
LIVING ON THE EDGE Providers race with online data growth and with each other
online content. C
The key difference being between widely distributed architectures, where a CDN will place smaller amounts of servers in hundreds or thousands of locations and a more centralized approach, where a provider will ramp up large amounts of capacity in fewer locations
There is also a cloud approach to CDN services that is fundamentally different from that of traditional providers. Amazon Web Services’ CloudFront offering allows the customers themselves ramp up their CDN capacity dynamically. The size of a CloudFront customer’s bill depends entirely on the amount of bits they deliver using the service.
AKAMAI’S CDN EMPIRE
One of the largest CDN service providers in the world is Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai. According to its Web site, the company handles one fifth of the world’s total Web traffic.
Akamai preaches the widely distributed CDN doctrine, arguing that the centralized- architecture CDN’s got it wrong.
ontent Delivery Network providers are constantly ramping up capacity at the edges of last-mile networks to keep up with the stellar growth in
CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS:
With servers installed in about 1,500 locations, the provider has a direct relationship with about 1,000 different network providers in 71 countries, says Robert Blumofe, the Akamai’s SVP of networks and operations. His team is responsible for global strategy, deployment, operation and security of Akamai’s production and corporate infrastructure.
The types of facilities Akamai chooses to place its CDN infrastructure in varies. Some of Akamai’s infrastructure is in colocation data centers and in some is installed in point-of-presence facilities of individual network providers.
While the type of facility is secondary to its location, each choice has its own benefits for the CDN.
A commercial colo is attractive because of the presence of a variety of carriers. “There are some cases where we are in the large commercial data centers and in those large commercial data centers we will connect to multiple of our network partners,” Blumofe said.
The company does not use any managed services in commercial data centers, taking only pure colocation.
Besides access to an individual ISP’s network, colocating at one ISP’s data center or POP is also either free or extremely cheap.
One of Akamai’s value propositions to an ISP is reduction in easing the traffic on its network. “The networks are all wrestling with rising costs as traffic grows on their networks.” By easing traffic pressure, the CDN provider not only saves the ISP money but also improves their subscribers’ experience.
Because of this benefit, Akamai often gets bandwidth and colocation services from networks free of charge or at a minimum cost.
While colocation facilities bring the benefit of having access to multiple networks in one place and individual ISP’s reduce cost, the single most important factor in choosing the location is presence of the audience the CDN’s customers are trying to reach. “What we want is to have our servers as (close) to the ISP’s subscribers as possible.
“It’s all about being near the end users. We’re always measuring and seeing where our traffic is going. Where are the eyeballs that are consuming our customers’ traffic?”
Once the location with the biggest amount of
Akamai’s Network Operations Command Center (NOCC) in Cambridge, MA 22
www.datacenterdynamics.com
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