InformationWeek

December 4, 2000

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Content-Delivery Services
Content-Delivery Network Services Vary Greatly

When selecting a provider, consider its underlying infrastructure and partners

By Andy Patrizio

More on content delivery vendors:

Cisco Brings All-In-One Approach To Content Delivery (9/4/00)

Computer Reseller News: George Conrades - The Speed Demon (11/13/00)

Network Computing: Web Hosters Unite! (10/30/00)

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efore selecting a content-delivery provider, it's important to know your partner and ensure that it will be around for a while. You should also examine the provider's technical architecture and consider the impact those architectural decisions will have on your applications and data. It's probably also a good idea to consider the partners the content-delivery service works with and their financial backers as well.

Many of the players in the content-delivery arena are relative newcomers. Some have managed to grow quickly and assemble an impressive roster of customers. Others are still relative startups.

Asking a startup to distribute your content may be unnerving, given that dot-coms are going pop like helium balloons in sunlight. After all, if Pandesic LLC, an E-business application service provider with Intel and SAP as backers, could implode, then no one is safe. But with a strong infrastructure and seasoned service people, some of these companies at least provide some level of assurance they'll be viable business partners into the near future.

Content-delivery networks have their own ways of doing things. When choosing one for the long term, it's important to consider competitive and technological factors. InformationWeek compared seven networks: Adero, CacheWare, Cidera, Digital Island, epicRealm, iBeam, and Mirror Image Internet.

Adero has made international expansion and E-commerce application services its focus. It has servers in more than 30 countries and continues to expand that network, thanks to $105 million in investments. Adero's GlobalWise Applications and GlobalWise Commerce business are designed to work with a company's existing network to interact with worldwide customers.

CacheWare specializes in content distribution and caching from an origin server to edge servers. Its CacheWare Content Manager takes the load off an origin server by acting as the intermediary between origin and edge servers.

CacheWare pushes updated content to edge servers, rather than requiring each edge server to contact the origin server. The privately funded company started operations in September 1999 and lists three primary investors--Adler & Co., Rogers Investment, and J.F. Shea & Co.--and one technology partner, Sun Microsystems.

Cidera's network is satellite-based and specializes in transporting data streams. It has more than 300 points of presence in North America and presence in Europe, with expansion into Latin America and Asia later this year.

Cidera offers static content caching in addition to streaming media, and it offers Usenet, the Internet news group service that can be a bandwidth and content hog. This lets Internet service providers off-load multiterabyte loads and lets customers send huge files without choking network servers. The company went public this summer.

Digital Island was the first company to offer content delivery in 1996. It has raised $800 million, thanks to private placements and an initial public offering. Three customers--Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft--also kicked in $45 million to help Digital Island expand its network to handle 7.5 million users.

Digital Island has 160 access points in 25 countries and is expanding its data centers to deploy more than 8,000 edge servers worldwide. It's also expanding into the satellite transmission market and adding an international production center for localized content.

The company's services include site hosting, its own private network, and data centers for business customers. It provides content-delivery and application services for secure transactions and network awareness. It also has a consulting and services business. Such a wide range of services is a strength in this market.

Digital Island is working to implement both ad-driven and subscription business models. It's also working on seamless insertion of ads into the data streams, using Traceware, a product that looks up the client IP address and predicts what country, even what metropolitan area, the customer is in. This will let its customers deliver targeted content and advertising in any region.

EpicRealm specializes in a worldwide E-commerce network for the business-to-business market. Its network backbone covers North America, Europe, and Asia, and lets customers be served by local servers, regardless of their locations. EpicRealm caches static and dynamic content, database-driven content, and even encrypted content.

Publicly traded iBeam specializes in streams via satellite rather than terrestrial lines. This method reduces the number of hops to transmit the stream, thereby reducing packet loss.

A terrestrial transmission can go through as many as 20 hops, while iBeam sends the stream from the source straight to the satellite, then back to edge servers at ISPs and major data centers. The data travels over only the last mile to the user on land lines.

IBeam is working to improve quality of service over the last mile, meaning software intelligence makes real-time routing decisions to pick the best server for the user. It's also developing better authentication and control of content distribution to geographic areas.

IBeam counts Covad Communications, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and venture-capital firms such as Accel Partners, Crosspoint Venture Partners, and Media Technology Ventures among its investors. Strategic partners include Microsoft, Network Appliance, and RealNetworks.

Mirror Image Internet, a subsidiary of Xcelera.com Inc., boasts an impressive list of partners, including Cisco Systems, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Oracle. The company specializes in caching technology and is building what it calls a Content Access Points network designed to integrate into existing data centers and greatly accelerate the mirroring, caching, and delivery of content.

Chances are, once you make a selection of content-delivery vendor, it's a relationship you're going to have to live with for a while. That means you might get locked into certain technical requirements and cost structures. So, as with all product selections, do your homework and make sure this is a choice you can live with for the near and long term.