Five CDN Trends Businesses Need to Keep Track of

Five CDN Trends Businesses Need to Keep Track of Content delivery networks (CDNs) have made even more strides today by creating many kinds of services in an era when e-commerce sites and video delivery were prevalent. Soaring video traffic, home office proliferation and secure service acquisitions are driving the expansion of the content delivery industry as its core functions increase network dominance. Content delivery networks (CDNs) have made great strides in creating many services in an era when e-commerce sites and video delivery were prevalent. People have witnessed the rapid expansion of the CDN market in the past few years, with cloud computing giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon joining industry pioneers such as Akamai Technologies, Limelight Networks and Mirror Image. Some of the early CDN providers were acquired by telecom companies, while Fastly and Cloudflare are newer entrants to the market. What is a CDN? A content delivery network (CDN) is basically a global collection of servers that speed up the delivery of Web content by bringing it closer to the user. Data centers use caching as a process of temporarily storing copies of files so that users can access Internet content from Web devices or browsers more quickly through their nearby servers. The content in the cache includes web pages, images, and videos from the nearest proxy server to the user. Shorter routes from origin to destination save bandwidth, improve performance, and reduce costs. Global video volume climbs Video continues to soar as a percentage of total global network traffic, with IP video accounting for 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2021, up from 73 percent in 2016, according to Cisco. Globally, UHD video accounts for 20.7% of IP video traffic in 2021, up from 1.8% in 2016. CDN providers are now more popular than ever. The unprecedented popularity of streaming services, social networks and online gaming has dramatically increased the load on data centers. CDN adoption is booming Today, as part of a rapidly growing list of use cases, content delivery network (CDN) operators are committed to providing security services, mobile applications, gaming software delivery and firmware updates, while supporting emerging streaming video TV services and helping enterprises' work-from-home employees make rapid transitions to large-scale work from home every day. Five key trends in CDN development So what are the emerging trends that IT managers should be tracking with CDN providers in 2022? 1. Rapid growth in the number of CDN providers and potential consolidation Akamai is the industry leader in CDN vendors, with competitors such as Limelight Networks, Level 3 Communications, Edgecast Networks, Mirror Image, CDNetworks, and others in the market. But telecom companies have acquired some of these carriers to provide CDN capabilities to their customers. Cloud computing giants Google, Amazon.com and Microsoft have also entered the CDN industry space, introducing CDN products to enterprises of all sizes, all of which are built on top of their powerful global computing and distribution networks. Of course, the more of these vendors in the industry, the better. 2. 2. Expanded security focus Early CDNs were designed to help enterprises deal with unexpected traffic and DDoS attacks by distributing content requests across their vast networks. That continues today, but CDN operators such as Akamai have been seen to offer additional security services to their customers and spent $1.5 billion last year, an emerging trend that IT managers need to keep a close eye on. Last month, Akamai announced plans to spend $900 million to acquire core cloud services developer and provider Linode, whose services include compute, block and object storage, hosted databases, load balancers, and a managed Kubernetes product that supports running containerized applications. Last September, Akamai announced plans to add its solutions to Akamai's zero-trust security portfolio with the $600 million acquisition of micro-segment solution maker Guardicore, which Akamai says will be particularly well suited to provide comprehensive protection for enterprises against threat actors and the spread of malware and ransomware. About a year ago, Akamai acquired Inverse to better enable the adoption of Internet of Things and mobile devices, including connected HVAC, lighting systems, robots, medical devices and printers in the enterprise. On its fourth-quarter 2021 earnings call, Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said the company will generate $1.33 billion in security revenue in 2021, up 26 percent from 2020. Security accounted for 39 percent of the company's revenue last year, up from 33 percent in 2020. In the CDN space, security capabilities go well beyond DDoS attack protection and include Web application firewall. Dead application mitigation and screen grabbing protection. Data security. DNS protection. 3. 3. Edge computing provides help for remote work CDNs are becoming a major driver and use case for edge computing, delivering content from as close to the customer's edge as possible using much of the same methods that providers use to move content closer to end-user devices. Cloud computing CDN providers are adding more features, such as processing power, to the increasingly intelligent edge of the network. CDN architectures are playing a leading role in supporting work-at-home companies. After all, the early CDNs were built on edge computing technology long before the term emerged. 4. Single CDN or multiple CDNs? Companies that want to stream live video need more event capabilities, whether for domestic or global audiences. In fact, if the primary server experiences performance issues or outages, companies in the event group will use multiple CDNs (one as the primary server and another as the backup server). Advanced software packages from companies such as Conviva allow customers to switch back and forth between CDNs in real time to ensure the best viewing experience. This is also important if there is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) capacity issue and content needs to be delivered on time with reduced bandwidth. In addition, CDN coverage is stronger in some continents, countries or regions than others. Construction and Purchase There was a time when large companies considered building their own CDN networks rather than relying on the services of existing providers. Netflix, the world's leading content streaming service, began building a global CDN, claiming to have spent more than $1 billion to ensure that the movies, TV series and variety shows on its groundbreaking subscription video-on-demand streaming service were as close to customers as possible and loaded as quickly as possible. Disney has launched its own subscription service internationally to compete with Netflix and its expanding competitors, and in 2017 purchased a majority stake (estimated at 85%) in BAMTech for billions of dollars. Major League Baseball created the streaming technology company in 2015. This provides Disney with the CDN and related assets to fast-track the launch of ESPN streaming services and its Disney+ consumer streaming services by the end of 2019. Conclusion During the Winter Olympics, CDNs are increasingly being used by enterprises of all sizes outside of the media and entertainment verticals. The key to the CDN trend is that the use of CDNs extends well beyond streaming video. Microsoft's use of CDNs to cache static assets of its Office 365 software suite closer to the browser will speed up downloads and reduce end-user perceived delays. Meanwhile, SMBs are now using CDNs to support work-from-home applications, and corporate IT departments are using CDNs to publish patches for their products.