 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific II 2013 |
| Article no.: | 9 | |
| Topic: | Content delivery network and the digital experience | |
| Author: | Jim Fagan | |
| Title: | President of Managed Services | |
| Organisation: | Pacnet | |
| PDF size: | 219KB |
About author
management and financial management. Mr Fagan previously worked at Rackspace as Managing Director of Asia Pacific. where he also served as Director of Financial Operations. Prior to joining Rackspace, Mr Fagan was at Dell most recently as Finance Controller for the Managed Service business, responsible for the overall financial management and pricing structure of the company’s services division. Previously, Mr Fagan worked at Chase Manhattan Bank and Sei Corporation.
Jim Fagan holds an MBA from Arizona State University and a BS in Finance from Villanova University.
Article abstract
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are essential for the distribution of high quality content on the Internet to audiences and end-users around the world. Content creators, depend on CDNs to deliver their content to mass or niche audiences anywhere in the world; CDNs give them the ability to create revenue generating services and applications. Public Internet networks, as we all know, have many performance issues, so CDNs make use of a variety of services and technologies to provide seamless content delivery.
Full Article
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which enable the serving of content on the Internet to audiences and end-users around the world, offer many possibilities to the content delivery value chain. For content creators, it means the opportunity to monetize content by reaching mass or niche audiences anywhere in the world. For service providers, it means the ability to create revenue generating services and applications. For end users, it means endless possibilities for entertainment, learning, self-improvement and even personal income.
However, content delivery on IP networks is riddled with performance issues that get in the way of service stickiness, content usefulness and a favourable user experience. When a CDN network fails in its effort to deliver consistent service quality, content distributors are torn between delivering substandard service they cannot profitably monetize, or provide high-quality experience and pass the cost to end-users.
Meanwhile, millions of people around the world are demanding more from content providers – they want on-demand high definition video that runs smoothly, multiplayer games that do not lag, e-commerce sites with video and live chat capabilities, speedy transfer of large files and live streams that simulate TV broadcasts.
Thirst for content
Asia is the biggest consumer of content by default and by design. The region has well over 1 billion Internet users, with an annual household Internet penetration growth rate of 15 per cent between 2009 and 2013. With its 3.5 billion mobile subscribers, the region accounts for 50 per cent of the global mobile subscriber base.
Incidentally, Asia is also home to some of the most tech savvy ‘netizens’. Over 811 million people in Asia use social media, representing 50 per cent of the global social media user base. China has nearly 242 million online shoppers, the largest e-commerce user base in world, and two-thirds of its citizens engage in online game playing. Japan and Korea, on the other hand, are the acknowledged global leaders in M-payment applications.
Moreover, Asian-produced content, from Taiwanese and Korean soap operas to Bollywood movies, are in high demand in the region and around the world. We expect greater demand and proliferation of Asian-produced content as the increasing number of tablets and assorted boxes connected to TV, drive the demand for high-definition video over the Internet.
Content Delivery Networks, deliver content closer to the users through a large distributed system of Internet servers deployed in multiple data centres throughout the region. CDNs serve a large portion Internet traffic today, which includes web objects (text, graphics, URLs and scripts), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications (e-commerce, portals), live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, and social networks.
CDNs ensure that content is delivered as fast as possible, despite the different platforms, whether HTTP, Flash or Windows media and is accessible using different devices including smart phones, tablets, PCs or laptops and other IP-connected devices such as set top boxes, gaming consoles and Smart TVs.
CDNs enable faster downloading of content, minimizing the service degradation issues associated with latency, thereby enhancing the user experience. This is why the network or the medium, over which the content is served, is just as important as the content itself in terms of delivering immersive digital experience.
CDN service providers today comprises pure play CDN players that lease capacity and data centre space to service providers and telco CDNs that own and control the network. Recently, mobile service providers are joining the CDN fray, deploying CDNs to meet the increasing demand for content on the mobile platforms. Mobile providers do not build CDN networks to launch CDN services per se, but rather use them to optimize content delivery, adding intelligence around device detection and content adaptation to address performance issues associated with serving content on wireless networks. A number of Asian mobile carriers in Japan, Korea and Indonesia have announced deployments and trials of CDN networks since last year.
A good customer experience is essential to monetize Asian content, so what can service providers do to provide the high quality experience customers rely on and to ensure they meet the needs of digital consumers?
Points of presence
Recent reports indicate the shifting of IP gravity from the US to Asia as Trans-Pacific traffic declines and Intra- Asia traffic increases. CDN providers need, then, to expand their CDN footprint in the Asian region. We are seeing an increasing number of pure play CDN providers partnering with Asian telcos and joining interconnected CDNs to increase their footprint. Telcos, on the other hand, must continue installing PoPs (points of presence) in their biggest broadband markets, while keeping an eye on developing Internet economies and serving as catalyst for building content delivery ecosystem in those countries.
Big data and content
Content suppliers outside of Asia host data in origin servers outside the region. To minimize the time it takes to draw content from these servers, content suppliers may opt to save their big data and frequently accessed content, such as videos or documents, in Asian data centres. Data centres provide secure and scalable environments to store content without huge capital expenditures. Some of these services are available on a subscription-based model, making it even more cost effective for content distributors.
Complete visibility and control of a CDN network is necessary to enable easy monitoring of network performance and issue resolution. CDN telcos have the advantage in this area as they can configure network resources and allocate bandwidth on the fly to meet unexpected peak in content demands. CDNs built on redundant infrastructure have the added advantage of network resiliency ensuring the availability of capacity and protected routes in the event of network failure.
Network as a service
An ideal network for CDN services is one that is not only redundant, but fully-interconnected with network, data centre and PoPs, all managed and maintained though a scalable cloud-based service delivery engine. This is a prototype of a true software-defined networking (SDN).
Software-defined-networking employs Network as a Service (NaaS) – a computing model that optimises resource allocation by considering network and computing resources together as a unified whole. The more common types of NaaS are:
• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) use public networks (Internet, etc.) for private, secure, managed traffic, offering, in effect, the services and convenience of a private network;
• Bandwidth-on-Demand (BoD) dynamically assigns bandwidth in an IT or telco network based on the needs of each user or network node; and
• Mobile Network Virtualization allows Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) to offer services riding on a mobile provider’s network.
The ideal NaaS model for supporting CDNs is one where the network owner is not simply a traffic-carrier but an application- enabler and IT service provider. In this software defined networking service model, the CDN service forms part of full service IT solutions. CDN, along with other services including, but not limited to, private network connectivity, Internet access, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and other cloud-based services. With a single interface for ordering, billing and requesting services and support, NaaS makes the deployment, monitoring and management CDN network seamless to the customer.
The biggest advantage of NaaS is its ability to flexibly scale network resources according to peak and off-peak demands. ‘Virality’ of content or increased user access to such content, will not affect the speed of download and content delivery and performance. By giving control of the CDN network to the CDN providers, they can allocate resources according to the needs of their customers. This should help content providers make business decisions based on readily available usage data.
The ultimate winner will be the end-users who will be able to consistently access high quality content, download big data faster and more efficiently and enjoy rich digital experience anytime, anywhere and on any device.
