Loading ...Techcrunch has become one of my favorite sights to browse when I have time to kill. From there I found that Limelight Networks has raised $130MM in funding and is one of the leading content delivery networks. CDN for iTunes is Akamai and for You Tube it is Limelight.
For hosting EV1 is a sponsor of Techcrunch and a leading hosting provider.
I am curious to know if CDN/Hosting is available in India with quality comparable or better than EV1/Limelight and who the leading providers are ?
For Indian companies wanting scalable/reliable hosting/bandwidth to serve Indian consumers would they go to people like EV1 or would they go to Indian providers ?
The market is competitive at the low end - just web space and email accounts. Beyond that the local vs overseas gulf is wide in terms of what you get for what you pay.
Smart startups opt for Amazon S3.
But it lacks the ease of use you get with say a Cpanel interface with a linux dedicated server.
I’ll see if i can find out ….but i seriously wonder if we do ……i mean for once there’s no india market for online videos…i mean we only have 1.5M broadband lines to start with ……n even if CDN is to support foriegn land ..i geuss our international bandwidht costs are still high ……(again no local content)
But just wonderin …we haev da cheapest telecom gear available in india …….i think it’ll be great to research n do a cost study on checkin if settin up a CDN in india would be feasible …..
N i have to agree to TechCrunch is great at wat it does …..almost profiles astronomical number of webstartups ….i’d rather call it the Wikipedia for Webstartup information….Micheal is a dude ….a future TimOReilly ???…..and guess what ….
There’s an indian bringin Techcrunch home too …profiling Indian webstartups @ …webyantra.net…Great work by amit ranjan …
Amit Siwal
Very interesting question. A few thoughts, specifically about CDN (I know even lesser about hosting):
1. IMHO, the Indian market hasnt hit that kind of scalability requirement as yet, especially for rich-media distribution (audio / video / high-resolution graphics). IMHO again, CDNs have maximum relevance in rich-media distribution. At most, one could see them useful for distribution of largely-static text content, where scalability requirements are just too huge. Application hosting might be a different game.
2. A few ISPs (notably Reliance) have been speaking of integrated delivery of content, including VoD, on one wire. My sense is they have investigated setting up a CDN for themselves - which IMHO is a different game than setting up a third-party CDN. (To my understanding, in most cases, it aint full-fledged CDN, but devicing a scalable way to serve high-quality on-demand audio / video — there have been companies trying to do this technology in the US, and its a surprise most of them failed! Also, BT has just launched such a service in the pilot mode.)
3. It is not entirely clear if it makes sense to build a “India-specific” CDN - or whether it really means anything at all. This is related to how Akamai works - their algorithms to distribute content, and the caching technology. To my understanding, to build “India-specific Akamai”, all Akamai needs to do is to co-locate servers with ISPs in India - which it already does (most probably with VSNL in Mumbai / Delhi). People in India will simply get the content from servers in India, without the packets really doing a world-travel before reaching the intended computer.
4. I do not know the pricing of the Akamai-types. I dont know their cost structures, and the cap-ex they’ve made. I also do not know the way their relationships with ISPs work. But if there is a market of rich-content producers and consumers in India, where such a service can be sold even after Akamai-types are around, CDNs can certainly be made.
Not just reliance ….BHarti,BSNL,MTNL too has been testing IP-TV solution and a CDN forms teh backend for that and delivers rich media content over their Broadband network which is DSL at teh moment(383K subs)……
However, all the operators will be setting up their CDN’s for delivering media over their networks to their Subscribers …..with Internet/voip as core services ……
I guess market for Internet companies to setup CDN for delivering applicationas thru websites over www is not being penetrated by service provides ….they r all busy counting mobile users additions n doin those sms fraud ……….
EV1 is an unreliable host, tried them and left them.
Here are opinions on hosts from leading Webmasters:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum120/2.htm
Speedera was a successful CDN service provider in India which was acquired by Akamai. Akamai does have an operation in India.
Several networks like IndiaTimes, Rediff already use CDNs to reach readers in different parts of the country and abroad.
Broadband penetration is still limited in India, 256kbps is considered broadband while our friends in US, Korea etc. have 6 MBps pipes to home. Lack of bandwidth also limits bandwidth hungry operations like video.
The costs of setting up a conventional CDN the way Akamai does is pretty high. A peer to peer CDN like Limelight networks makes more sense for India.
@Idea, Execution, Profit - S3 is great for startups, but is not a substitute for a CDN.
I don’t think India needs a India specific CDN, at least at this time. That being said, ground work for CDN companies should most likely start
soon.
@Mehul - Didn’t know Akamai was has a node in India. Akamai is suitable for bigger organizations like you mentioned. There is still need for a company to CDNize the long tail. Companies like Voxel, Cachefly need to have a node in India.