A content delivery network (CDN) distributes content globally to provide faster delivery and availability. Content is replicated across servers in the CDN so clients can access a nearby copy rather than overloading a central server. CDNs are paid by content providers to deliver their media and files to end users. When choosing a CDN, functionality, performance, costs, and service should be considered. Functionality includes features like compression and security. Performance is critical and is measured by latency and throughput. Cost structures vary between providers so custom plans should be explored. Quality customer support is also important.

1. DETERMINING THE
DELIVERY NETWORK NEEDS
By
Dr. Maimoon sulthan
MBA 2nd year

2. CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK
• A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a globally distributed network of web servers whose purpose is to
provide faster delivery, and highly available content.
• The content is replicated throughout the CDN so it exists in many places all at once.
• 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.

3. 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 centres.

4. HOW TO CHOOSE A CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK
• If your website visitors reside in multiple countries or even multiple continents.
• There are 4 categories that need to be considered when choosing a right CDN:
Functionality
Performance
Costs
Service

5. FUNCTIONALITY
• Defining the needs and the requirements of a business is the first step when it comes to picking up a CDN provider.
CDN should be able to do
• Origin-Pull and Gzip compression.
• custom CNAME for secure web pages.
• DDoS protection
user of the CDN service should be able to
• View (real-time) statistics on CDN usage
• Upload files via FTP
• Do a Purge-All via an API
• Override the browser caching headers your origin server sends.

6. PERFORMANCE
• Speed is the key.
• how fast the CDN servers will be delivering the files to your end users.
• The KPIs to look at are: latency (in ms) and throughput (in kbit/s).
• Besides latency, the ‘power’ of the servers is also very important. Your servers may be close to the
visitors but they can still be slow, for a number of reasons, including:
• The servers cannot handle the number of concurrent connections from visitors’ browsers (resulting in a
queue)
• The hard drives are old and slow
• The servers are behind a under-capacity load balancer
• The servers have a small pipe to the internet

7. • CDN servers can be tuned for performance (e.g. SSD hard drives) and are able to respond to requests quickly
and send those bytes out fast.
• Do a trial or proof of concept with one or more Content Delivery Networks in the geographical regions that
are most important to you
• Have solid performance monitoring in place during this test phase in order to get real data about the CDN
performance
• Interpret the data in the right way and compare the results of the different CDNs

8. COSTS
• Prices tend to differ a lot between CDNs and gathering pricing info is key in this step.
• Custom price plans are quite common in the CDN market, so engaging a provider of interest and asking
about a custom price plan is always recommended.

9. SERVICE
• Customer service/support
• Many CDN providers offer 24/7/365 support via email and phone
• Friendliness and knowledge level of customer support reps
• How fast do problems get solved?
• Account management quality and availability
• Do they really work with you as a partner, or are you ‘just another customer’?