Intro

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a globally distributed network of web servers or Points of Presence (PoP) whose purpose is to provide faster content delivery. The content is replicated and stored throughout the CDN so the user can access the data that is stored at a location that is geographically closest to the user. This is different (and more efficient) than the traditional method of storing content on just one, central server. A client accesses a copy of the data near to the client, as opposed to all clients accessing the same central server, in order to avoid bottlenecks near that server.

High content loading speed = positive User Experience. If all data is located on a central server, the User Experience is negatively affected by limited loading speed. The greater the distance between two objects in communication (in this case, the user and the server), the longer it takes for the content to reach any of these objects. To put it more simply, the purpose of a CDN is to improve user experience and provide it with a more efficient network resource utilization. Content providers such as media companies and e-commerce vendors pay CDN operators to deliver their content to their audience, that is, end-users. In turn, a CDN pays ISPs, carriers and network operators for hosting servers in their data centers. There are two key mechanisms that explain how CDN functions:

• Keep important content distributed to multiple, globally distributed data centers so it is closer to end users, and thus faster to download.
• Use server optimizations based on content type to get that content to the user most efficiently.

Other than better performance, Cdns also offload the traffic served directly from the content provider’s origin infrastructure, resulting in possible cost savings for the content provider. They are also effective against DDoS attacks, since they provide their own large distributed server infrastructure to absorb the volume of the attack, but we’ll explain that later.

Location is key for content delivery speed. The farther the user is from the server where the content is stored, the longer it will take for the content to reach the user, and this in turn negatively affects User Experience.

CDN Architecture and Key Components

Here’s a simple model of a Content Delivery Network, its key components and their roles explained below:

• Content Provider: the entity delivering the content
• Authorization: the Content Provider gives the CDN Provider permission to deliver content
• Reporting: the Content Provider demands performance analytics from the CDN Provider to evaluate the quality of the CDN Provider’s service and have access to other relevant data
• Source: the Content Provider sends a copy of the content
• Content: digital information created and/or licensed for distribution
• Request: the user requests from the Content Provider to view or locally store data (content)
• Deliver: CDN delivers the content to the user
• User: the entity requesting data (content) from the Content Provider

Most CDN architectures are designed using these key components:

• Delivery Nodes: primary purpose is to deliver content to the end user. Delivery Nodes are servers that contain caches running one or more content delivery applications. They are typically located as close to the end user as possible. Content can be stored manually to these nodes (Push CDNs), or delivery nodes can demand content from origin nodes based on Cache Expiration Rules (Pull CDNs).The advantage of Push CDNs is that the content is instantly available to the users demanding it. Its main disadvantage is that the Content Provider has to proactively “push” content every time it is updated.The advantage of Pull CDNs is they automatically demand content from the Content Provider. Its main disadvantage is the initial content delivery speed: when the user demands content for the first time, the delivery speed will be the same as if the Content Provider didn’t use CDN. After this initial request, though, all other users located in the same geographical location or close to the original user who made the request will be able to access content instantly because the content will be cached inside the Delivery Node.
• Storage Nodes: primary purpose is storing copies of original data that is being distributed to Delivery Nodes. Storage Nodes can be deployed in a hierarchical model to allow tiered caching.
• Origin Nodes: These are the main sources for content that enable content distribution across the entire network or the content owner’s infrastructure.
• Control Node: primary purpose is hosting of management, routing and monitoring components of a CDN.

A model of CDN architecture. Source: Richard Gibbs – A new approach to publishing and caching video

Benefits include reducing bandwidth costs, improving page load times, or increasing the global availability of the content. The number of nodes and servers making up a CDN varies, depending on the architecture, with some reaching thousands of nodes with ten thousands of servers on many remote points of presence (PoPs). Others build a global network and have a small number of geographical PoPs.

CDN nodes are usually deployed in multiple locations, often over multiple backbones. Benefits include reducing bandwidth costs, improving page load times, or increasing the global availability of the content. The number of nodes and servers making up a CDN varies, depending on the architecture, with some reaching thousands of nodes with ten thousands of servers on many remote points of presence (PoPs). Others build a global network and have a small number of geographical PoPs.

There are 3 primary types of content:

• Dynamic content: content generated on the fly by the web server using any of several common web programming languages such as php, ruby or java
• Static content: content that typically does not change very often and does not require generation. Images, CSS, and JavaScript, etc.
• Streaming content: videos or audio files that are played via a web browser control.

Tweet This: CDNs distribute content faster throughout globally placed datacenters so it’s closer to end users

Tweet this: Reading about #CDN key components: Delivery, Storage, Origin & Control nodes

Tweet this: There are three types of content: Dynamic, Static & Streaming content

Web Performance Optimization Explained

A great user experience is everything when it comes to running a website. At one hand, the user expectations are huge; the site should provide interactivity, media and info, but on the other hand, the Internet is growing, making it harder and harder to provide a great user-friendly website.

Image Source

When we think about website speed, we think about various ways to optimize the loading speed of different elements, including webpages, pictures, videos, apps and other elements the user saves to their computer or downloads through their Internet browser. Having a website with a high loading speed results in:

• Better User Experience
• Having a better position in search engines
• Higher conversion rates (the number of website visitors who turn to customers)

The Importance of website speed optimization

We can prove the importance of website speed optimization by using ecommerce as an example. In ecommerce, the number of sales is directly connected to the speed at which website content is being delivered.

Akamai, currently the world’s largest CDN services provider, ran a research in 2017 that went on to show that:

• A 100 millisecond slower webpage loading speed can result with a 7% drop in sales
• A 2 seconds slower webpage loading speed can almost double the number of visitors who end up abandoning their carts
• 53% of users who use smartphones to visit web stores won’t make the sale if the webpage takes more than 3 seconds to fully load
• The optimal loading time that ensures the highest number of sales is between 1.8 and 2.7 seconds.
• 28% of users won’t return to the same web store if they think it takes too long to load
• The webpages that lead to the highest number of sales loaded 26% faster than other webpages
• A 250 millisecond faster loading time proved to keep users from visiting a competitor web store

Performance has a direct impact on your website revenue, metrics influence brand perception, loyalty and visitor engagement.

According to eMarketer estimates, retail e-commerce sales reached $2.3 trillion in 2017, a 23.2 percent increase over the previous year. The mobile share of this stood at 58.9 percent, or $1.4 trillion. In 2021, mobile e-commerce could rake in some $3.5 trillion and then make up almost three quarters (72.9 percent) of e-commerce sales.

Consider the patience of your customers; the majority of Americans are said to wait in line (in a real shop) for no longer than 15 minutes. However, on the web, 1 out of 4 customers will abandon a webpage that takes more than 4 seconds to load.

More data that proves the connection between website speed and number of sales:

• Walmart increased its total sales number by 2% for every second in increased webpage loading speed
• For every 400 milliseconds of increased webpage loading speed, Yahoo increased its traffic by 9%
• For every 100 milliseconds of increased webpage loading speed, Amazon increased its total turnover by 1%
• Shopzilla optimized its webpage loading speed from 6 seconds to 1.2 seconds. This lead to 25% increase in total website traffic and a 12% higher revenue

This graph shows the correlation between loading speed (X axis, in seconds) and the total number of sales (Y axis, in percentages) at Walmart based on data from 2012. The blue columns show the percentage of traffic for a given loading speed. Source: SlideShare

Another analysis performed by Moz (a well known source for SEO enthusiasts) proved the correlation between content loading speed and higher ranking in search engines.

This graph shows the correlation between TTFB and Google search ranking. Source: How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Ranking

A website’s ranking position is in correlation with Time To First Byte (TTFB), the amount of time it takes for the user to receive the first byte of information from their content provider.

The above graph also shows all websites that were included in this analysis have excellent content loading speed (and high search rank positions).

Tweet this: For every 1 second of improvement WalMart experienced up to a 2% increase in conversions

Tweet this: For every 100 ms of improvement, WalMart grew incremental revenue by up to 1%

There are so many benefits of user performance but here are the top 3 reasons why you should care about maximum performance and top speed:

1. User satisfaction

Long load time equals high bouncing rates. The bounce rate is an important factor that any website owner should ALWAYS take into account. In simpler terms, it’s when a user visits your website and rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site, leaves. It is considered as one of the most important measures of effectiveness for a website.
Considering the improved technology of today, a website with simple content should completely load within 2 seconds. Loading time is crucial since it directly affects the satisfaction or dissatisfaction levels of your visitors, and therefore your page revenue. In other words, time is of the essence!

2. Improved search rankings

Since April 2010, Google started to take load time into account when ranking sites. Of course, Google’s algorithm uses much more factors that determine how to rank search engine results, but the page load speed is taken into account and should be a priority. Improving your page load time is an effective way to help visitors get where they are going faster, and it helps you stay on top of the search results which is the best way to get spotted by potential users. Page speed matters now, more than ever. Whether your customers are there for a pretty interface, clear privacy policies, for the best bargain, or simply because they have found exactly what they were looking for, they had to get there in the first place, and quickly. If you could cut that path to your website even shorter, and this is a matter of milliseconds, you could convert more visits to actual orders.

3. Mobile users

Mobile users are more patient than computer users, main reason being is that they’re used to having slower internet speed. But considering today’s connection speeds, loading time for mobile is an important factor. As you may presume, things are different for mobile devices (including tablets) even though fixed connections are enough to not cause too many problems for website loading time. Mobile page optimization is more important than ever, since web browsing is now mainly done via mobile devices.

In fact, here are three crucial points to Google’s mobile customer experience swing:

Tweet this: 93% of users who research a product or service on mobile device actually buy products.

Tweet this: 66% of e-mails are opened on mobile devices.

Tweet this: The amount of shoppers who made a purchase on a mobile device increased 2.5x from 2009-2014.

An advantage of 250 milliseconds of page load time, according to recent research, is what keeps your customer from going to a competitor. By choosing CDN over standard hosting, you ensure that the content is delivered from a server located closest to the end user. This will also save you money on buying additional hardware and software for the server.

Here are some other amazing performance optimizations done by other web giants:

Tweet this: Shopzilla reduced average page load time from 6 seconds to 1.2 seconds, & increased revenue +12% & page views +25%.

Tweet this: Yahoo increased traffic by 9% for every 400ms of improvement.

Tweet this: Mozilla got 60 million more Firefox downloads/year, by making their pages 2.2 seconds faster.

Tweet this: Advantage of 250ms of a page load time keeps your customer from going to your competitor.

Tweet this: Amazon and Walmart increased revenue by 1% for every 100ms of better page load time.

History of Content Delivery Networks

The Internet is a constantly-changing mechanism, and new forms of data and content are constantly being created. Soon after it was made commercially available, the problem of pushing massive amounts of data to the end user as fast as possible had to be solved. Enter CDNs.

The roots of CDNs were created almost twenty years ago and continue to be the driving force of content delivery. Since its creation, there have been significant research efforts directed toward this technology by academia and commercial developers. CDNs could easily be considered as one of the top emerging technologies that impact our web experience.

The first Content Delivery Networks were built by Akamai Technologies, Inc. based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their CDNs are responsible for 15-30% of global Internet traffic. They have over 2200 Points of Presence in 120 countries and are affiliated with 1500 networks. Companies that followed suit and also built their CDNs include AT&T, Telstra and Deutsche Telekom.

Since the introduction of CDNs, the market has seen a significant boost in the delivery of broadband content and the streaming of audio, video and associated data over across the Internet. In short, this is the life cycle of CDNs so far:

The evolution of Content Delivery Networks can be organized in four periods:

• Pre-formation Period: the first period gave rise to server farms, hierarchical caching, improvements in Web servers and caching proxy deployment. The first big step was infrastructure development, mirroring, caching and multihoming. These technologies created a perfect starting point for CDNs to be made and to grow along.
• The first generation: the first gen CDNs focused primarily on dynamic and static content delivery, as these were the only two content types on the web. The principle mechanism of the first gen was the creation and the implementation of replicas, intelligent routing and edge computing methods. Apps and info were split across the servers.
• Second generation: the second generation of CDNs was mainly focused on Video-on-Demand, know also as VoD, which is streaming video and audio content amongst users and news services.The second generation of CDNs cleared a path for delivering content to mobile users, at the time it was truly revolutionary. The second gen CDNs are also credited with the usage of P2P, cloud computing techniques to delivery and maintain content. It was still in a stage of infancy, though.
• Third generation: the third generation of CDNs is upcoming and is expected to be modelled for community, meaning that the systems will be driven by average users and regular individuals. Self-configuring is expected to be the new technological mechanism, as well as self-managing and autonomic content delivery. Quality of experience is expected to be in the focus.

CDNs have a decade-long history with roots spanning from the late 90’s and have always adapted to the changing technologies and other user requirements. After all, change is one of the basic principles that drives the web. However, it is difficult to predict what’s next for the CDN market, as there is so much research and development to be done. The development of content delivery networks sought to deal with extreme bandwidth pressures, first as video streaming was growing in demand as well as the number of content providers. That was in the past. With the emergence of cloud computing, CDNs have become a continual trend involving all layers of cloud computing:

• SaaS (Software as a service), e.g. Google Docs
• IaaS (Infrastructure as a service), e.g. Amazon
• PaaS (Platform as a service) e.g. Google App Engine
• BPaaS (Business Process as a service) e.g. advertisements, payments

Future of Content Delivery Networks

Even though it is hard to accurately predict what the future of CDNs will be, one thing is certain: this industry will grow exponentially, which means that the technologies used to run them will develop even further.

The main goals for the future are performance, availability and security.

To understand how the CDN industry will continue to develop, we can use the development of traffic logistics in urban areas.

Many new technologies are being developed or tested as we speak, including systems for traffic jam prediction and automated cars (designed to be self-driven to prevent the occurence of traffic accidents). Their implementation could lead to totally new urban landscapes where traffic will be safer and there will even be more parking spaces.

The same is expected to happen in the CDN industry as well.

CDN Providers currently have only one way of collecting PoP performance data and that is through Log Files. Their sheer volume, variety and rate at which they are updated make problem solving, system upgrades and quality assessment that much more tasking.

For this reason, one of the goals for the future of CDN is developing predictive analytics and algorithms that can predict behavioral patterns based on machine learning. These technologies based on the OSI model of communication functions should replace BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), the technology currently responsible for directing Internet traffic, and completely eliminate security threats.

Facebook has already developed a similar technology called Open/R and Google has developed its own called Espresso.

The key players responsible for coming up with technologies that will replace BGP are some of the world’s major Internet companies and every one of them has a different approach to the topic. That’s why it’s hard to know exactly what kind of solutions they are coming up with. Also, information is limited because these technologies are still only used in autonomous systems owned by their developers.

BGP is still here to stay, though: it will be used to transmit user requests to autonomous systems ran by new technology. In other words, it will still be the only mode of communication between autonomous systems, as well as between autonomous systems and the user.

Three main disadvantages of BGP

Negative effect on network scalability: every router that belongs to an autonomous system or network has to store the addresses of all other routers that belong to the same network in its routing table. The bigger the network, the longer the routing table, and this requires the router to have sufficient memory. Many old routers don’t (or can’t be updated).

This problem can be solved by adding route reflectors to the network. Instead of connecting to each other, the routers all connect to the route reflector.

This table growth is caused by using BGP and overall has a negative effect on network scalability.

A graph showing BGP table growth on the Internet. Source: Wikipedia

Inflexibility: BPG-ran routers can’t predict if and when network congestion will occur because their packet forwarding mechanisms can only reach the packet’s transport layer. This means the router can’t access information such as the state of the packet and the optimal path for the packet to reach its destination. It is possible to manually control some aspects of path selection, but this is still not scalable enough.

Security issues: Internet traffic almost always involves packets being transferred through several autonomous systems (eg. an ISP and its infrastructure) that have previously agreed on terms and conditions under which traffic is allowed. Autonomous systems have to trust each other and this is where the problem arises.

Looking Glass is a program specifically designed for the purpose of finding out the process of path selection based on manual rules set for a given router. This also allows insight into packet transfer through several autonomous systems and rules that define optimal path selection.

Benefits of Content Delivery Networks

Mobile and app-based internet force more and more content providers, content publishers, and online vendors to simplify navigation and improve user experience, primarily the page load time of their website. Just one second of delay can cause up to 7% loss in customer conversions, which is more than harmful. This is where a content delivery network (CDN) comes in as essential for those interested in global Internet connectivity.

Image Source

Here are 8 reasons why implementing CDN into your business ecosystem is something you must consider:

Global accessibility: Content Delivery Networks help make content globally available and accessible, bypassing the problem of content source and destination by having multiple Points of Presence (PoPs). This facilitates global business transaction

Going global is the first step to a high-quality

Scattered Points of Presence: if the main server of a network is a whole continent away from a customer located in Asia, when the customer makes a query, content delivery will be slow. For this reason, CDNs use servers that are located as close as possible to the geographical location of the end user. This significantly speeds up content delivery.

online business.and eliminates disturbances (slow or unsuccessful transactions).

This illustration shows how a CDN Provider located in New York delivers its content across the globe. Orange = location of PoPs and Delivery Nodes storing replicated content that the CDN Provider wants to share with their users. Green = the distance between end user and the PoP closest to them.

Automatic data analytics: Usually, CDN Providers charge for their services based on data volume (they often charge for every GB of data delivered). This includes data analytics: most used search queries, time, location, etc. Data analytics allows companies to improve their business model and see which practices work, which don’t, and where there is room for growth.

Less delays: CDNs use globally accessible servers and replicate content. Their end users are usually closer to PoPs than the main servers which makes for less delays in content delivery.

Lower rates of network congestion: It’s simple – when congestion rates are lower, performance is better. Network congestion often occurs when a large number of users want to access a website at the same time. Being able to redirect users to replicated content leads to less network congestion, superior performance overall and better User Experience.

Protection against DDoS attacks: the purpose of DDoS attacks is not just to make a website temporarily unavailable. They aim to diminish trust in the company running the website in question, negatively influence public opinion about CDN Providers and other related services. All of this inevitably leads to financial losses.

Increased reliability and trustworthiness: There is a very high probability the content delivered through CDNs will maintain optimal quality in comparison with content delivered through other sources. CDNs are designed so content could be distributed at a faster rate. This makes the factual information shared more trustworthy, which has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.

Lower overhead costs: CDNs eliminate having to pay for expensive foreign services and for multiple providers. Content distributed through these networks is available globally with the help of just one provider. Paying customers can allocate Internet traffic to more Delivery Nodes if that’s what they need and that solves the problem of content availability effectively.

Other than the top 8 things, here’s a short list of some other benefits that a CDN can provide to a website which can greatly improve site performance and user experience:

• Increased revenue by 1% for every 100 ms of improvement to your page load time
• Retaining more customers (they are more satisfied)
• More manageable traffic
• Maximum availability of your product
• Easy delivery of video, audio rich content
• Build more interactive website at no cost of losing visitors due to latencies
• Reaching mobile customers with ease
• Setting your own criteria to enable the best possible performance for your website
• More scalability to your business, you can grow it as much as you want to

Tweet this: Just one second of delay can cause up to 7% loss in customer conversions.

Tweet this: CDN future looks bright, with around 20% growth YoY.

Tweet this: CDNs can provide basic protection against DDoS attacks.

What is the Best CDN (Content Delivery Network)?

To succeed, organizations need a CDN partner that can support their needs with ease and agility – but how do you select the right one, given that technical and business requirements are constantly changing?

Choosing a CDN that stays ahead of the continual advances in web and mobile technologies as well as the evolving threat landscape – will enable you to consistently offer your customers the best possible online experiences while minimizing operational complexity and overhead costs.

But the question arises: what is the best CDN?

The only answer to this question is: best CDN depends on your use case.

Choosing a CDN (content delivery network) can be a daunting task. There are a range of available solutions out there, and at first glance they can appear similar.

However, once you get into the details you will find that there are some striking differences between the CDNs.

1) Your organization’s needs

This may sound obvious, but it’s important to note. Before you start comparing and analyzing various CDN providers, you must first take stock of your own needs and requirements.

What kind of a website do you have? Are you running an ecommerce shop? Where are your users located? What kind of media do you serve your users the most (text, video, etc.)? What’s your budget?
You have to answer lal these questions first so you can formulate a general idea about what do you need from your CDN provider. Different CDNs can have different specialties, and it’s important to pick one, or several, that will meet your specific needs.

2) User geography

Geography plays a major role in content delivery.

You need to know where your audience is located. Is it local, regional, or global?

It’s important to choose a CDN that has Points of Presence (PoPs) in the areas where your audience is located. Each PoP should have adequate egress capacity to ensure your audience receives the fastest possible experience. The CDN should also have peering agreements with the local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and last-mile networks that serve your audience, in order to eliminate “last-mile” bottlenecks between the CDN and the user’s internet connection.

If you’re planning to only deliver content to a local audience, you don’t need a global CDN, you’re probably better off with a local one.
Also, some CDN providers specialize in specific geographic areas. For example, if you want to deliver your content to China from, let’s say, US, you’re not only facing geographical distance – you also need to take into account additional requirements that Chinese government imposes.

3) Speed and reliability

One of the crucial factors in your decision will most likely be the speed and reliability of a CDN. The three most important ways to measure speed and reliability are:

• Response time -the metric of how long it takes for a server to answer a browser request
• Latency -the amount of time it takes the host server to receive and process a request for an object, like a CSS file or an image. When a visitor clicks on your page, the number of objects that need to load will affect the total response time.
• Throughput – how steadily the content is delivered.

The CDN service provider you select should have a large network. Simply put, the more servers you have, the faster and more reliably content you can deliver your content. More servers equals less buffering, greater redundancy, more scalability, and so on.

Since end users are connecting to your site via a CDN, you need to ensure maximum uptime and availability. Assess CDNs on their ability to be held accountable to an SLA.

4) Cost and pricing models

It’s very important to prioritize both cost and performance before selecting a CDN.

You need to understand how a few milliseconds of latency might affect your user’s experience. If you are running a mission-critical website or application where a few hundred milliseconds makes a big impact to your business, you might want to choose a CDN that has the best possible performance.

However, perhaps your website or application is not mission critical, and those few hundred milliseconds are invisible or inconsequential to your users. In that case, you could choose a CDN that costs less and has almost as good a performance against the best performing CDN.

5) Security

Security is a serious consideration when choosing a CDN. Features such as encryption, DDoS mitigation, and compliance all play a key role in selecting a vendor. Encryption ensures that your customers’ identities, transactions, and the integrity of your website are protected in transit between an endpoint and the CDN’s edge.

DDoS attacks are certainly a pervasive force and something that cloud vendors fight on a frequent basis; ensure that the vendor has the requisite strength to fend off these attacks so that your content is always able to be served. Finally, compliance plays a key role in vendor selection if the content you are serving from a CDN requires an extra bit of care (eg. sensitive medical information, financial data, etc.).

6) Support

Every good CDN provider should offer you assistance whenever you need it.

The quality of a CDN’s support and services staff directly reflects the quality of the CDN. The right CDN offers teams with a depth of expertise and breadth of experience – teams who have helped design the Internet’s most innovative sites, deliver its biggest events,and mitigate its largest attacks. They should be able to provide expertly managed delivery, broadcast, and security services with 24/7,proactive, round-the-globe monitoring and support – giving their customers access to top-flight specialists in web, mobile, streaming,and security whenever and wherever they need it.

Content Delivery Network Companies

The industry has grown significantly in recent years, as the importance of a CDN has also grown. The CDN market was valued at USD 9.24 billion in 2018, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 38.97 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 27.30%, over the forecast period of 2019-2024.

Emerging mobile content delivery networks, growing internet traffic, and increasing video content over the internet are some of the factors providing growth opportunities to the content delivery networks market.

The Internet is always evolving and so is the need for faster websites and better user experience. Nowadays, there are more and more CDN providers, but here is a quick list of the top 25:

7Content Delivery Network Market Trends

Swift expansion of Internet-based services such as online video, streaming media, online music, online games have increased the need for expansion of the web, as well as the demand for better Quality of Service (QoS).

CDNs have emerged as an ideal solution to meet all these problems and to meet the demand of delivering better quality content to users. The CDN market is driving on the growth of high implementation rate of CDN solutions in the U.S., Europe (EU), and Asia Pacific (APAC) regions.

The content delivery network (CDN) market was valued at USD 9.24 billion in 2018, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 38.97 billion by 2024, at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 27.30%, over the forecast period (2019-2024).

North America holds the largest share in the CDN market. North America has a high internet penetration rate, which is expected to aid the growth of content in the region. With the presence of the market leaders and early adoption of technologies across various end-user verticals, North America stood as the leading regional market and is expected to continue its dominance, over the forecast period.

There are several new trends that helped increase the growth rate and the adoption rate of CDNs:

1. Expanded Internet usage and reach

Over the course of the last decade, the number of internet users worldwide has tripled from 1 billion in 2005 to 3 billion in 2015. Smartphones helped out as well, as 2 out of 3 adults in USA owns a smartphone. Worldwide, smartphones will make up roughly 50 percent of mobile phone users by 2017. Traditional solutions, like an accelerated WAN, can’t keep up with the pace of change and the amount of dynamic content and diverse access points.

2. Mobile

As users become more sophisticated – and 3G and 4G networks more prevalent – expectations for website speed and performance, no matter the device, are higher, as mobile users expect similar web experience to desktop. Google started the mobile friendly search initiative, which, in other words, means that mobile-optimized website (design, performance and speed) could offer a competitive advantage in search results. This made way for dynamic mobile optimized CDNs.

3. Global eCommerce

Global B2C ecommerce sales are expected to reach $1.92 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016. In the first quarter of 2015, retail ecommerce sites had more than $80 billion in sales, compared to $26.5 billion in the first quarter of 2006. CDNs became an imperative for smooth eCommerce websites.

4. Video streaming

More than 6 billion videos are viewed on YouTube’s platform each day. Facebook reported its users watch about 4 billion videos every day, 75 percent of them on a mobile phone. A CDN reduces latency for high bandwidth content like streaming video.

5. Internet security

Whenever customers type in their credit card numbers to make a purchase online, they are placing their trust in that business. DDoS attacks are on the rise and new ways of Internet security are being developed; all of which have helped increase the growth of CDNs, as cloud security adds another layer of security. CDNs can greatly improve the security of a website.

Here are some factors contributing to the growth of CDN market:

• Increase in total annual Internet traffic for 40% (source: Beyond fast – How the speed of residential Internet access will develop between now and 2022)
• Increase in total number of Internet users
• A higher demand for high-quality video content, increasing for 82% by 2023

Projections for CDN markets have proven to be overly conservative because the market are, in fact, growing faster than expected. The following two graphs illustrate projections made in 2013 for the period between 2010 and 2017.

It was estimated that by 2017 the CDN market will be valued at $4.5 billion, which is $2.83 less than the actual value it reached in 2017:

Graph illustrating total revenue for CDN markets from 2010 to 2017. Source: Goran Čandrlić – How big is content delivery market?

Graph illustrating the distribution of CDN revenues per region from 2010 to 2017. Source: Goran Čandrlić – How big is content delivery market?

As viewers consume more video, more often, for longer periods of time, at higher quality, and on more devices, the content delivery market is as hot as it has ever been. It’s also important to note that the two major things that have marked the evolution of internet are mobile technology and social media. Additionally, growing IP video traffic is expected to boost the CDN market. Today, video consumption over mobile devices and internet is growing at unparalleled rate. As network operators become aware of advantages of CDN, numerous cable operators and telcos in Europe and North America have launched CDN initiatives.

Numerous industry verticals that use CDN include advertising industry, media and entertainment, gaming, government, educational and healthcare, online music retailers, consumer electronics, mobile operators, and internet service providers among others, launching a perfect background for CDN to grow.

Tweet this: The Content Delivery Networks (#CDN) Market is estimated to grow to $12.16 billion by 2019.

Content Delivery Networks and Security

The impact of DDoS attacks is much more than meets the eye. Not only can these attacks inflict huge economic losses, they can also have a serious impact on the reputation and the image of the victimized company or organization.

Research has shown that it takes at least 10 hours before a company can begin to resolve an attack, while it takes 4.5. hours on average before the attack even gets detected and an additional 4.9 hours before mitigation can begin. The average cost of an attack is $100,000 per hour, meaning that a DDoS attack can cost 1$ million before an Internet-reliant firm even starts to mitigate the attack.

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In order to protect your company, you need a mitigation protection in place, to keep both your brand reputation and IT infrastructure out of the harm’s way. Any web solution must fit the business requirements. Defending against DoS attacks occurring at the network layer requires a network architecture that can absorb large bursts of traffic and that filters all traffic so that only web traffic is permitted onto the network. Every business is different and requires a different approach.

These are the key questions to ask when it comes to choosing a DDoS mitigation solution:

• Does it offer positive protection?Many DDoS attacks at the network level can be stopped by only allowing legitimate HTTP traffic onto the network. The solution should drop all other non-application traffic or UDP packets without application payloads.
• Does the solution absorb all attack traffic?Not all attacks target web applications or services. Attacks sometimes attempt to sneak in through FTP or non-web ports; so you need to look for a solution that can evaluate all of your traffic in order to protect the site more effectively.
• Does the solution stop attacks before they reach your data center?Cloud solutions are designed to stop an attack before it ever reaches your data center. This means you need not be concerned about DDoS attacks impacting your data center. On-premises devices protect you once the attack reaches the device, which means the attack will invade your data center.
• Does the solution impact performance?Ecommerce and media streaming applications demand excellent performance. The more traffic and the more attack types, the more rules you need and the more hardware is necessary; look for a solution that’s architected for both performance and security.
  
  
  

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• What is the total cost of ownership?Many security managers look at the price of a solution but not at the total cost of ownership. Consider the cost of the device, the cost of the redundant systems needed, and the expense of data breach compared with the effectiveness of the solution. Traditional solutions on which many companies have relied, oversize the bandwidth and adopt complex hardware such as firewalls and load balancers. This approach is considered by many experts costly and in many cases ineffective. Bots still outnumber humans online, accounting for 56% of Internet traffic versus humans at 44%. And bad or malicious bots account for more traffic than good bots, with 29% of a site’s traffic. Good bots represent 27% of site visits. Advertisers are losing $6.3 billion to $10 billion per year of ad revenue to fraud, thanks to the epidemic of phony ad traffic perpetrated by bots. Cloud-based services live outside of a company’s data center in order to secure traffic before it reaches company infrastructure. There are two primary types of Cloud-based anti-DoS/DDoS services: those that route suspicious traffic to a centralized location where malicious traffic is filtered out, and Website Protection Services that utilize CDN to absorb and inspect malicious traffic across a distributed network of servers to shield company websites and applications. Another advantage of this choice is the sensible reduction of investment in equipment and infrastructure and of course the reduction of the costs of management typical of hardware solutions.
• Does CDN solve security issues?Since CDNs use surrogate servers located across different data centers in different regions around the globe, this scattered infrastructure provides a more secure network.CDNs are known to absorb less-sophisticated DDoS attacks, simply with bandwidth. With CDNs, you gain the advantage of – size. The overload caused by DDoS attack is processed on different PoPs according to their origin, which helps to prevent server saturation. Many CDN providers will also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. This will result in the decrease of spam and hack attacks. Again, this depends of a service that your CDN provider is offering.

Tweet this: CDNs can prevent website security issues including DDoS attacks.

Tweet this: The average cost of a DDoS attack is $100,000 per hour.

Tweet this: On average, it takes 10 hours for a company to begin resolving a DDoS attack

Content Delivery Networks for Specific Verticals

Content Delivery Networks for Streaming

Video streaming is one of the largest mega-trends today. It’s a whole new way of consuming content, involving specific technologies and challenges.

Video is currently the most requested content format on the Internet. Distributing video using CDN requires a different approach than distributing other types of content.

The very nature of video as content is different because users (usually) want to watch it instantly and not download and watch it later (unlike having to download and install an app before being able to use it).

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You can broadcast live streams through a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as Akamai, through the KMC. The encoding software installed (such as FMLE) encodes your real-time camera signal and sends it out through a secure RTMP connection to the CDN. Then, using a Kaltura Player, you can embed the live broadcast in your websites. You can set the live stream entry metadata and specify broadcasting settings in the KMC in the same way VOD content is managed. By using a CDN for live streaming, you guarantee a better experience for your viewers worldwide.

There are two types of video content:

• Video on demand: video content that has been prerecorded and is available for streaming at any time. Example: using Netflix to watch movies or TV shows.
• Live video: video content that is possible to watch as it is being recorded, with no or as little delay as possible.Example: a live broadcast of a football game.

There are also two types of video content providers:

• OTT (Over the Top) providers: these providers deliver their video content through an Internet infrastructure rather than using traditional media like television. Examples: Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, smaller independent services.
• IPTV (Internet Protocol Television): these providers deliver television content through Internet Protocol networks using Internet connection rather than through traditional satellite or cable formats. Examples: watching television content in real time or recording content that the user can watch later at their convenience.

Users want to watch video now, without delay.. To achieve that goal, CDN Service Providers use advanced technologies:

RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol): RTSP is a network control protocol designed to control streaming media servers and a set of simple commands for users, such as play, pause and record.