Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) have never been more critical. The majority of web traffic today is served through CDNs, and with sudden, massive increases in distributed workforces, the need for CDN services will only keep growing. People working from home will be consuming substantially more bandwidth over much more geographically dispersed areas.
Cloud-based applications and business services that require increasingly high performance must be rapidly deployed to the right locations, without delay or bandwidth limitations. CDNs must therefore maintain geographically distributed and interconnected servers that provide cached content as close to users as possible.
The costs of backhauling and latency
As CDNs continue to expand their footprint and serve more end users, they need direct connections to IP backbone routers that connect multiple networks in a single PoP.
Without direct connection to local exchange carriers at a PoP, CDNs are forced to pay expensive backhaul charges to deliver content over multiple networks. The growing quantity and sophistication of content also means more traffic, more routing, and greater bandwidth requirements. Not only will costs continue to increase, but latency and dropouts will likely occur as well.
Connecting to backbone routers and local networks
Data centers with local carrier exchanges and backbone routers not only reduce or eliminate backhauling charges, but also provide secondary and tertiary connections to reduce latency and mitigate single points of failure.
A CDN may be present in multiple locations across a variety of different data centers, but the more direct connections to local networks they have, the more availability zones they can service without backhauling to another PoP. Backhauling costs are significantly reduced and they can deliver more content faster without worrying about latency or bandwidth limitations.
Netrality Data Centers are perfect for CDNs
Netrality partners with leading CDNs in the US, including Akamai and Cloudflare. Our data centers possess multiple core backbone routers, exchanges and key core cable IP assets. Our fiber-dense, urban-located facilities are the epicenter of the central business districts we serve.
We are also strictly carrier-neutral, which makes us a powerful enabler in the major US markets where we operate: Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, St. Louis, and Kansas City. While many larger media, cloud and telecom players are developing or expanding their own content delivery networks, threatening existing CDNs’ profits, Netrality remains committed to augmenting, not competing with, all of the partners in our ecosystem.
To learn more about making Netrality a part of your content delivery strategy, contact us.
