RE: [kNT] akamai

["Nick Bryant" <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

> Nick,
> That's probably the best explanation I've heard out side of Akamai!

Hahaha well I did spend a long while doing some CDN analysis at
somewhere I used to work... glad it wasn't a complete waste of time!

>I have
> worked with Jonathan Seileg SVP and (the late, as he was on the first
> plane
> to strike on the 11th) Danny Lewin CTO and what you outline there is
> almost
> true to the general running of their network. They would argue
furiously
> that they don't need a minimum of nine servers in a rack for usable
> connectivity and that one in every ISP would work (in their dreams).
True
> they have many thousands of servers located around the globes network
but
> as
> George Conrades (CEO)plays golf with the head honcho's at Yahoo and
CNN
> the
> caching gets flushed every so many minutes which really only helps
those
> content serving customers that have volumetric traffic. They have
terrible
> problems sometimes resolving issues with embedded files, or there's
some
> complicated Flash stuff going, but for images, audio and video it
works,
> especially Playboy as I have watched, although you won't find any of
the
> Akamai site championing this as it has far more to do with Hugh's CEO
(who
> happens to be a girlie q'suprise and also has Hefner as a surname)
being a
> shareholder in Akamai.
> 
> There are so many other people doing it now though and some have a
> slightly
> more defined/refined purpose.
> 
> AN EXAMPLE ONLY
> http://www.pelagonetworks.com/homepage_fla.html
> http://www.mirror-image.com/index.html
> 
> Mirror Image as one, for example takes the philosophy that if you
build
> big
> server rooms full of toys and call them CAP's (Content Access Points),
the
> user can define where, how much and for how long their content stays
in
> this
> CAP and it has a nifty little tool that allows you to ROS (Return To
> Origin
> Server) when the content hasn't been cashed in the CAP's and then it
> automatically sticks it into the user determined sites. They have
about 30
> of these CAP's around the world......... very expensive start-up! Do a
> search and you'll see the rest. It's becoming a very competitive
market
> now
> and the name of the game is price slash. It's never been cheaper to
edge
> cache!
> 
> In terms of delivery I can't outline the Servecast network but it's a
mile
> above everyone else's due to the way the CTO built it. I think we
should
> all
> be looking for a peering solution and then we wouldn't need any of
these
> expensive options to steam content.

Or even better still a multicast peering solution. Media would then no
longer be an issue and some very clever people could write some
protocols for distributing bulk data reliably over a multicast
infrastructure. Or maybe we already did.... ;)

But I've given up the whole multicast thing now as it seems to be making
sod all progress... unless someone knows something I don't?

Nick