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Be a Smooth (CDN) Operator
W.L. Dudink, Product Specialist – Media DeliveryApril 3rd 2013, Paris - France
© 2013 Level 3 Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Level 3, Level 3 Communications, and the Level 3 Logo are either registered service marks or service marks of Level 3 Communications, LLC and/or one of its Affiliates in the United States and/or
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Agenda
The Challenge
The Role of a CDN
Operator CDN Demand
Whats Next?
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Company Overview
$6.3 billion revenue and more than 10,000
employees
Serving customers in more than 45 countries
Facilities-based provider with 165,000 route
miles of fiber network connecting multiple
continents
Transporting over 6.5 TB of billable traffic
across an IP backbone
Delivering global data, voice, video, and
managed solutions for business, content,
government and wholesale customers
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An End-to-End Global Network
Global Reach
Owned fiber networks with reach to North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region
Connected by extensive undersea facilities
Services reaching 5 continents
Core Network
More than 500 network markets
~170 metro markets
~100,000 intercity miles
~30,000 metro route miles
~35,000 subsea route miles
More than 340 Multi-tenant Data Center facilities worldwide
Bringing the world closer together
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The Challenge
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Business Challenges
It’s difficult to piece together an online solution that addresses all of my
business needs
You know your business — preset packages don’t offer solutions you need
Individual services through different vendors are complex and costly
I need my content delivery optimized and performing better than my
competitors
Will network will go down with extreme traffic spikes, multiple media formats, or
attempts of attack?
My website needs to be running faster and my content needs to be relevant
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Challenge 1: Finding a Provider to Solve All of Your
Business Needs
Your business is unique, and so are your requirements
You don’t just need a CDN, you need services from start to finish through a
single provider
Prepackaged offerings don’t seem to meet all of your needs
You want to simplify workflow and remove unnecessary vendors and middle men
I have a
question
about my
web site.
We can’t help you.
Call your CDN provider.
Please hold while
I track this down…
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Challenge 2: Content Delivery that Outperforms Your
Competitors
Content consumption is growing exponentially — it’s difficult to keep up
Multiple Platforms, Vendors and
Content Types
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A Bigger Challenge to Deliver Content
It has become more difficult to provide consistent quality delivery of content
Larger files
Longer video duration
Higher quality content
Metric 2006 2009 2011
Average U.S.
Bitrate768 Kbps 4.7 Mbps 5.3 Mbps
Typical Video Rate 300 Kbps (LQ) 1.5 Mbps (SD)3.8 Mbps
(HD)
Average File Size < 1 GB 1.5 GB 3 GB
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High-Quality Content Delivery is Not Optional
Performance is a must
Consumer expectation has grown: long download times or pauses in live viewing
are no longer acceptable
Customer satisfaction and loyalty depends on content performance
Downtime is often a newsworthy, devastating event
Expanding customer base
Information is not shared in a bubble, it is now expected to spread on an
international level
You have more places to reach, and those customers expect instant delivery
Growing traffic
Traffic spikes on popular content are sudden and extreme
Whether high peak traffic numbers are expected or not, end users expect your
network to deliver their content
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The Solution
You need a CDN ?
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Performance
AvailabilitySecurity
Scalability Offload
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Challenges to enter the CDN market
Domain Expertise: How do we develop the knowledge base to operate a CDN
and support it for the long-term?
Technology Infrastructure: Is our infrastructure scale-tested for speed, load,
reliability and reach to meet changing customer needs?
Value-Added Services: What kind of new services can we offer to generate
additional revenue streams?
Time to Market: Can we avoid long development cycles and yet still offer
bulletproof services as soon as possible?
Long-term Costs: Can we avoid high costs operational management of our
CDN while our revenues ramp?
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The Role of a CDN
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Content is more than Audio & Video
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Content is more than Audio & Video
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What's the primary issue a CDN addresses?
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Spread the load!• Get content closer
to the audience
A central point serving a vast audience…• Reaching critical mass• Single point of failure• Poor audience
experience
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How does a CDN work?
Put Content into the CDN
Users requests content
CDN gets content where needed
CDN delivers content
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Storage
Question Answer
What is it? External File Storage
o Origin Storage
o Cloud Storage
Value
Provided?
Lower cost and reliable solution for
large-scale storage requirementso Redundancy
o Offload CapEx + OpEx
Adhere to geographic license policies
Added Features (Management, Reporting, etc.)
What
content is
supported?
Pre-Recorded
Audio & Video
Graphics
Software
Documents
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Download & Progressive Download
Question Answer
What is it?
Delivering Physical Fileso Caching
o Caching & Download
o HTTP Download
Value
Provided?
Lower-cost & reliable solution
for wide-spread deliverieso Redundancy
o Global Reach
o Offload CapEx + OpEx
Added Features (Management, Reporting, Security, etc.)
What
content is
supported?
Pre-Recorded
Audio & Video
Graphics
Software
Documents
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Streaming
Question Answer
What is it?
Broadcasting Audio & Video Streamso Windows Media
o Adobe Flash
o Adobe Zeri
o Microsoft Smooth
o Apple QuickTime
Value
Provided?
Lower-cost & reliable solution
for wide-spread deliverieso Redundancy
o Global Reach
o Offload CapEx + OpEx
Added Features (Management, Reporting, Security, etc.)
What
content is
supported?
Pre-Recorded
Audio & Video
Live Broadcast
Audio & Video
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What else?
Reporting
Monitor CDN activities
Measure effectiveness andReach
Obtain raw data for additionalprocessing
Security
Prevent or enable deliveries to specific geographies
Ensure requests are valid
Secure the connection
Traffic Management
Encoding / Transcoding
Front End Optimization
Mobile Delivery
Fundamental Services ?
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What else?
Warming The Cache
Draining The Cache
Flipping Servers
Binding Servers
Mid-Tier Servers
Ingest Point
Publishing Point
Traffic Shedding
Content Invalidations
Adaptive Bitrate / Variable Bitrate / Smooth Streaming
Talk the talk...
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Operator CDN Demand
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Do you really need a CDN ?
A CDN lets you store, distribute and deliver on-net premium content, whether
this is for IPTV, OTT, web or mobile content. You don’t need a transparent
caching platform for this purpose.
A CDN lets you store, distribute and deliver off-net premium content. You can
monetize the CDN by renting its capacity to third party content owners. You
don’t need a transparent caching platform for this purpose.
Both a CDN and transparent caching let you offload traffic from the Internet. By
deploying edge nodes in strategically locations, you can offload traffic from
transit and peering links and your backbone.
Transparent caching saves money. CDNs save money and make money.
―Transparent caching OR CDN‖ vs ―Transparant Caching AND CDN‖
Transparent Internet Caching (TIC) vs Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
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Do you really need a CDN?
The use cases and The Choice
Add CDN services and expand the
product portfolio with products that
are adjacent to services already
offered on the network, thereby
increasing revenue.
You have ―eyeballs‖ and concerned
with the volume of traffic being
delivered over the network. Hence,
trying to control costs, and improve
quality.
Develop – Build a CDN from
scratch. High Risk, High Costs and
a long Time To Market.
Partner – Work with a provider for
building your CDN needs:
Basic Overlay
On-Net Edge
Managed CDN
Interconnected CDN
Federated CDN
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Partner Choices
Interconnecting CDNs
CDN Overlay
Content can be pulled in or cached on a number of CDNs
Load balancing over multiple CDNs
Offered by companies such as Cedexis, Conviva..
On-Net Edge
Deployment of Edge servers in the operators network
Lowers Transit costs and off loads peering connections
Offered by companies such as Google
Interconnected CDNs
Licensed CDN
Managed CDN
Federated CDN
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Interconnecting CDNs
Licensed CDN
Software based services
Deployed and installed by the provider
Maintained and managed by the operator
Stand alone or interconnected
Managed CDN
Software and/or hardware based services
Deployed, installed, maintained and managed by the provider
Opportunity for revenue sharing models or additional services
Interconnected with global CDN
Carrier based CDN
Offered by hardware vendors
Not actually building a CDN, so DIY!
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Interconnecting CDNs
CDN Federation
Standards in development with ETSI and IETF
True federation is not about APIs and technology, but more about the business, the
models, the SLAs
Possible scenario’s
Regionally between telco/operator CDNs
• Most local content stays local.
• No real need!
Global to regional CDN
• Small amount of traffic from local to global
• Global CDN traffic pushed to local
• There is a need, but depends on the business model.
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Whats next ?
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Considerations
Building a global, reliable, at-scale CDN with effective peering relationships is
very difficult, time consuming, expensive to build and complicated to manage
There are already a lot of competitors in the industry and 2 dominant providers
with established, proven technology
There are countless examples of network owners/operators/aggregators trying
to build out their own CDN – only to discover that building it and running it are
two different things
Some additional points to think about
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Resolving Concerns
Technology: proven, scale-tested CDN software and technology
Expertise: knowledgeable, industry veterans, skilled at getting you up and
running quickly
Management: a clear path for managing the services
Expanded Network: agreement that allows the customer the use of an
already existing global CDN to extend the reach of the customers own CDN
network where applicable
Time-to-Market: field tested processes and methodologies for a high quality
and timely implementation
Value Added Services: complimentary services designed to increase
revenue, margin, and differentiation
The ideal Solution provides...
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TOP-PERFORMING SOLUTIONS:
HIGH-QUALITY CONSUMER EXPERIENCE
Network Scale High Speed Delivery
Reliability Analytics
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A COMMITTED TEAM OF
BROADCAST AND CONTENT
DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS TO
HELP YOU PUT IT ALL TOGETHER:
SUPPORTING YOUR SUCCESS
Consultation Enhanced Support
Network & Application Tuning
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“WE RELY ON LEVEL 3 AS A TRUSTED CDN PARTNER, AND WE’VE BEEN TRULY IMPRESSED
WITH THE QUALITY OF THEIR VIDEO DELIVERY SERVICES, AS WELL AS THE LEVEL OF
RESPONSIVENESS AND EXPERTISE WE ARE GETTING FROM THEIR TEAM. THEY’VE BEEN
THERE WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY AS WE’VE DEVELOPED THIS NEW OFFERING, AND
WE’RE CONFIDENT IN THEIR ABILITY TO ENABLE HBO’S DELIVERY OF A PREMIUM MOBILE
VIEWING EXPERIENCE FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS.”
— GREG FITTINGHOFF, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF CORPORATE SYSTEMS AND INFRASTRUCTURE, HBO
“IN CHOOSING LEVEL 3 FOR ONE OF OUR CDN SERVICES, WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE
OPTIMAL CDN REDUNDANCY AND PERFORMANCE DIVERSITY, ENABLING US TO PROVIDE A
HIGHER QUALITY AND MORE RELIABLE ONLINE EXPERIENCE FOR BASEBALL FANS.”
— JOE CHOTI, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, MLB.COM
Our service organization understands your
business and is passionate about your success.
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Thank You !
[email protected]
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