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 ?
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Media Portals online may need the CDN service. Learning Management Portals need this service. Honestly even if we end up co-locating servers the issue would be sorted to a great extend. Hosting 5-15 servers is a cheaper resolution. All it needs is basic software to manage this or the professional services of a Managed service provider.
Steps to evaluate if you need a CDN service.
1. Is your own firewall slowing the website? (20-30% probability Yes get an expert for the same. Use tool like web trends)
2. Did the team see the effect of hardware accelerator solution ( citrix, riverbed) (15-20% Performance improvement)
3. How much data traffic is legitimate (20% of traffic ends u being null scans, etc..). At times close to 40% of the load is generated due to this ill-legitimate load.
4. Did you test by actually co-locating/separating the content server from the parent side before approaching a CDN player?
5. Can the CDN leader’s ( supposedly a consultant in this space?) assure you a ROI? ( 100% probability No)?
6. Can you derive a measurable (in number) SLA every month to assure you of the legitimate/acceptable end user activity/traffic assuming they are the 1st line of defense. Is this a generic rule based solution?
8. Last mile connectivity ( connectivity speed at end users end) is the reason why a website is slow.This may contribute to close to 50% of the reason for a slow download/page view .
CDN services may not be able to solve this but surely do help ONLY incase your audience is outside India
From pt 1-3 considering that 50% of this issue resides at Server end one should rethink going in for a CDN service. Do a good check.
The only solution is to keep pages light, switch on compression, separate the servers having content(jpeg) from the html pages and use a good deployment technique
Humble thougths above, tested and shared with all.
Enjoy
Tata Communication Ltd has launched its Global Content Delivery Network last month. I can bet its better than Akamai and Limelight.
For more info you can get in touch with me at s.sahoo2002@gmail.com
@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.
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.