RE: [kNT] akamai

["Nick Bryant" <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sounds pretty good to me!

Only thing to bear in mind is that in the case of about.com the actual
address for the A record of www.about.com will change too.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-k-networktrial@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-k-
> networktrial@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Emanuele Parravicini
> Sent: 09 November 2001 08:50
> To: 'k-networktrial@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: RE: [kNT] akamai
> 
> Ok Nick,
> 
> I read, I tried to understand and now I try to explain the process
with my
> own words...
> 
> 1- I type on my browser "www.about.com"
> 
> 2- "My" DNS server try to resolve www.about.com: it sends a request to
the
> authoritative DNS server for about.com. This in turn sends a request
> (based
> on my DNS server's IP address) to an origin server that retrieve the
html
> static page with "akamaized" references (like
> a102.g.akamai.net/6/.../img.gif).
> 
> (by the way... is the "akamaizing" of the references done statically
by
> some
> software based on some management information?...)
> 

I have never actually seen the software that does it but I'm presuming
the pages get fed through an akamiazer which strips actual content from
the root server and distributes into the edge and then changes the HTML
to refer to wherever it put it...

> 3- My browser downloads the static page and try to solve
> "a102.g.akamai.net/6/.../img.gif" in order to get the image
> 
> 4- My DNS server queries one of the "akamai.net" root DNS server (e.g.
> ZC.AKAMAITECH.net) and in turn it directs the address resolution to
one
> (the
> "best") of the authoritative DNS server for g.akamai.net (e.g.
> n3g.akamai.net); this is done by the use of a set of metrics.
> 
> 5- n3g.akamai.net has the skill to resolve the host name (a102 in our
> example). This name is associated with more than one server. My
browser
> will
> get the IP address of the "optimal" server (maybe the one that
actually
> has
> less open requests)
> 
> Do I get it right?
> 
> Emanuele