The novelty of delivering video on Web sites is over. User expectations have matured. Internet video consumers are becoming more numerous and more demanding. This paper outlines the inability of legacy CDNs to deliver on these seven criteria and the corresponding, unique solution provided by a Distributed Origin-based network architecture purpose-built for today's broadband video opportunity.
SEVEN ESSENTIAL
BUYING CRITERIA FOR
SUCCESSFUL
VIDEO DELIVERY
The novelty of delivering video on Web sites is over. User
expectations have matured. Internet video consumers are
becoming more numerous and more demanding. In turn, the stakes of picking the right content delivery This paper will examine the inability of legacy CDNs to network (CDN) for successful video delivery are getting deliver on these seven criteria and the corresponding, higher and higher. Several notorious content delivery fail- unique necessity for a Distributed Origin-based network ures-the Victoria's Secret fashion show, and high-pro?le architecture that is purpose-built for today's broadband outages on Facebook and Oprah.com-offer evidence to video opportunity. that fact. No one can afford to risk their company and career on a poorly informed choice for video delivery. SUCCESS OF THE OLDFirst, let's not disregard the bene?ts successfully delivered Against this backdrop, there have emerged new table by early-generation CDNs.stakes-seven essentials-for successful video delivery that every decision-maker needs to consider in making a Back in the early to mid 1990s, network interconnection decision on a video delivery provider. These buying criteria points were scarce. In the United States, for example, only are shared across the gamut of small, video-centric start- two such peering points existed-one near Washington, ups and established, familiar media giants: D.C., and one near San Francisco, CA. Network requests · Great end-user experiences and content delivery had to ?ow through one of these · Reliability, scalability, and global coverage two points ?rst before arriving at their ultimate destina-· Simple ?le management and content control tions. Latency was the fallout of the repetitive, long round · Real-time reporting and analytics trips required to fetch Web pages from originating servers · Excellent support through the limited interconnection points. · Low total cost of delivery· Great overall ?t To deliver faster Web performance, CDNs were engineered
SEVEN ESSENTIAL BUYING CRITERIA FOR SUCCESSFUL VIDEO DELIVERY 1to store small content ?les-graphic, photo, banner-ad der has fundamentally changed. Instead of delivering small and HTML ?les of typically 2K to 100Kbytes-on servers image ?les, CDNs now must also deliver video ?les that closer to end users. The critical technology enabling CDNs are often 10,000 times larger. As the size of the objects to was the cache-a simple, low-cost machine of limited be delivered has increased, the number of objects that can storage deployed on off-the-shelf, blade servers. Given be stored in the ?xed capacity of a cache proxy server has that most of a Web site's popular images were small, the decreased. Legacy cache clusters cannot store enough ob-cache proxy server rendered a high percentage of the site's jects to satisfy the demands created by high-end services content available for retrieval without fetching content all such as streaming video and interactive applications-the way back from the originating server. meaning that more request result in cache misses and more content must be fetched from originating servers. In Initially, cache proxy servers were deployed in Internet ser- turn, latency increases and we return issues that originally vice provider (ISP) edge networks. Over time, they showed spurred the development of early-generation CDNs.up more frequently at the growing number of peering exchange points. Eventually, thousands and thousands These legacy CDNs-successful at executing the job for of servers-usually in clusters of three to ?ve-were de- which they were originally conceived-simply were not ployed to create CDNs of adequate coverage. And complex architected, equipped, or optimized for today's tasks, routing and management schemes were developed, as especially in the area of video delivery. In September orchestrating traf?c around such a massive number of 2009, BitGravity conducted the ?rst ever CDN Satisfaction servers was no easy task. Survey, asking CDN decision-makers across North America what they most valued when selecting a video delivery Without these early-generation, cache-based CDNs, the provider. The four most important factors reported were Internet experience would've been wholly frustrating and great end-user experiences, great customer service, a fair less useful. It was their success that help... [download for more]
