Monthly Archives: May 2015

Content Delivery Network and its Business Benefits

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) accounts for large share of delivering content across websites users and networks across the globe. The content found in the websites of today contain a variety of formats such as text, scripts, documents, images, software, media files, live streaming media and on-demand streaming media and so on. In order to deliver such diverse content to users across the globe efficiently, CDNs are deployed in datacenters. CDNs accelerate website performance and provide a numerous benefits for users and also for the network infrastructure.

The internet is a collection of numerous networks or datacenters. The growth of the world-wide-web and related technologies along with proliferation of wireless technologies, cloud computing, etc. is leveraging users to access the internet with multiple devices in addition to computers. Web servers deployed in networks on the internet cater to most of the user requests on the internet. But, when web servers are located in one single location it becomes increasingly difficult to handle multiple workloads. This has an effect on website performance and efficiency is reduced significantly. Further, users access a variety of applications such as interactive multimedia apps, streaming audio and video along with static and dynamic web pages across millions of websites which require efficient and robust network infrastructures and systems. In order to balance the load on infrastructures and to provide content quickly to end users CDNs are deployed in data centers.

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) is a system of servers deployed in different geographical locations to handle increased traffic loads and reduce the time of content delivery for the user from servers. The main objective of CDN is to deliver content at top speed to users in different geographic locations and this is done by a process of replication. CDNs provide web content services by duplicating content from other servers and directing it to users from the nearest data center. The shortest possible route between a user and the web server is determined by the CDN based on factors such as speed, latency, proximity, availability and so on. CDNs are deployed in data centers to handle challenges with user requests and content routing.

CDNs are used extensively by social networks, media and entertainment websites, e-commerce websites, educational institutions, etc. to serve content quickly to users in different locations. Organizations by implementing CDN solutions stand to gain in many ways that include,

  • Faster content load / response time in delivering content to end users.
  • Availability and scalability, because CDNs can be integrated with cloud models
  • Redundancy in content, thus minimizing errors and there is no need for additional expensive hardware
  • Enhanced user experience with CDNs as they can handle peak time loads
  • Data integrity and privacy concerns are addressed

The benefits of CDNs are more emphasized by examining its usage in a few real time application areas. Some common application areas include,

  • E-Commerce: E-commerce companies make use of CDNs to improve their site performance and making their products available online. According to Computer World, CDN provides 100% uptime of e-commerce sites and this leads to improved global website performance. With continuous uptime companies are able to retain existing customers, leverage new customers with their products and explore new markets, to maximize their business outcomes.
  • Media and Advertising: In media, CDNs enhance the performance of streaming content to a large degree by delivering latest content to end users quickly. We can easily see today, there is a growing demand for online video, and real time audio/video and other media streaming applications. This demand is leveraged by media, advertising and digital content service providers by delivering high quality content efficiently for users. CDNs accelerate streaming media content such as breaking news, movies, music, online games and multimedia games in different formats. The content is made available from the datacenter which is nearest to users’ location.
  • Business Websites: CDNs accelerate the interaction between users and websites, this acceleration is highly essential for corporate businesses. In websites speed is one important metric and a ranking factor. If a user is far away from a website the web pages will load slowly. Content delivery networks overcome this problem by sending requested content to the user from the nearest server in CDN to give the best possible load times, thus speeding the delivery process.
  • Education: In the area of online education CDNs offer many advantages. Many educational institutes offer online courses that require streaming video/audio lectures, presentations, images and distribution systems. In online courses students from around the world can participate in the same course. CDN ensures that when a student logs into a course, the content is served from the nearest datacenter to the student’s location. CDNs support educational institutes by steering content to regions where most of the students reside.

In the internet, closer is always better to overcome problems in latency and performance, CDNs are seen as an ideal solution in such situations. Since CDNs share digital assets between nodes and servers in different geographical locations, this significantly improves client response times for content delivery. CDN nodes or servers deployed at multiple locations in data centers also take care of optimizing the delivery process with users. However, the CDN services and the cost are worked out in SLAs with the data center service provider.

How cloud computing can foster business agility?

In the current competitive market scenario, business agility is one key enabler for businesses to sustain their operations and achieve competitive gains. Business agility is all about adapting quickly to rapid market conditions and not getting lost in the competition. Conventional IT infrastructures have issues in quickly provisioning resources to support new business initiatives. Cloud computing models are an ideal IT service solution to overcome issues in IT resources and simultaneously promote business agility to achieve competitiveness.

Cloud service providers claim that adopting a cloud for business will lead to competitiveness and optimize business outcomes by improving agility. These claims is inspiring but let us first understand agility from the perspective of both, business and IT and examine how cloud models can support business agility. Firstly, the definition of business agility states that it is a term or a concept where organizations approach their markets and operational changes as a matter of routine. Business agility is a quality in which organizations adjust immediately to changing market conditions, take advantage of potential opportunities quickly, rapidly deploy new distribution channels at reduced costs and maximize their profits in the process.

CIOs experts claim that among the number of new technologies available, cloud computing models are ideal to realize business agility within an organization. This is because cloud models permit scalability (up and down), adjustable per user costs, pay for each resource and so on. Cloud computing can embrace an agile organization by supporting mobility, encouraging internal communication through collaboration software and permit interactions with customers in real time in order to create a constant feedback loop to drive business agility efforts.

The concept of agility is similar to the methods of agile project management where project teams analyze their priorities and project tasks are continuously evaluated throughout the entire project life cycle, rather than evaluating outcomes and performance at the end of the project. Basically, business agility is a systematic approach in change management which provides a framework for the organization on how to respond to change without neglecting the needs of the entire organization. An agile enterprise is understood as immune to change, and proficient in adopting itself to any change (internal or external) in a sustainable manner.

Agility is achieved in cloud computing because of its elasticity and flexibility. IT resources can be deployed much quickly and can be increased or decreased to meet market demand. Due to this flexibility enterprises can introduce new products or services, and adapt to changing circumstances. This flexibility and elasticity is applicable to all cloud deployment models. In addition to this since, the infrastructure is managed by an external cloud services organization there is no need to train IT staff within the company. Cloud models support agility in certain key areas for business enterprises, they are:

  • Quickly adapt to changing business processes: In agility existing business processes are changed or new processes are introduced. This change in processes would require IT resources to be replaced or new resources to be added. Cloud computing easily handles these changes by allowing companies to quickly add or change IT resources easily to support their changed processes.
  • Enables on-demand resources for development and testing: Resources are needed to support business processes and to test and develop new software. Procuring new resources and implementing them within the existing infrastructure can be time consuming and can introduce significant delays in capitalizing business opportunities. This can also be a business risk since money is spent on new expensive resources and must not become counterproductive. Adopting a cloud model will eliminate these risks as resources are available on-demand which saves time. Further, the usage based payment offered by cloud models replaces the initial up-front cost spent on new resources within the company.
  • Optimizes IT budgets: The usage model of pay per resource supports business companies to implement and test projects faster, saving money from new resources to be procured and made available. This eliminates budget allocation for IT capital expenditure, and supports finance to easily allocate fixed costs incurred on monthly basis. Cloud models makes it possible to have good control on unexpected IT spending with very little effort.
  • Focus more on IT strategies: Clouds are flexible and can scale quickly to provide speed and efficiency for business processes and transactions. Cloud applications can be accessed via the internet which supports businesses to access their elements and have more productive interactions with customers. IT teams have less burden of maintaining an infrastructure and the focus can be more on implementing new applications that are productive and will drive business results.

In June 2014, HBR Analytic Services conducted a survey titled “Business Agility in the Cloud” to show the link between the cloud, business agility and increased competitive advantage. The survey sponsored by Verizon included 527 participants from large and medium business enterprises. The results indicate that 71% of the responses have implemented cloud computing to reduce complexities in business processes and IT management. Within the cloud adopters, 74% mention that their business is able to achieve competitive advantage by moving their business processes to the cloud.

The Verizon report also explains that 32% of the companies having adopted the cloud are able to achieve business agility in rapidly changing and competitive markets. These 32% respondents further emphasize that with cloud adoption their enterprises are able to see benefits around speed, simplification and are able to connect with people and data which are all enablers of business agility. Looking into the above benefits and advantages and data, cloud computing models are becoming mainstream IT delivery models for enterprises.