Novell accelerates content for ISPs
 
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Novell has launched a software/hardware product for ISPs and Web hosting companies that could enable them to deliver their customers' Web content less expensively and much faster.
Dubbed the Novell Content Exchange, the subscription-based service aims to knock out the bottlenecks between the origin Web server and the Internet backbone and improve end-users' response time. Initially it will be implemented at 15 of hosting provider GlobalCenter's 19 data centers.
Novell Content Exchange consists of the company's Internet Caching System (ICS) installed on a Dell or Compaq server, Foundry Layer 4 switches and a policy engine that routes traffic based on the character or quantity of data. It also includes billing and management software integrated with the ISP's accounting and network management systems.
Novell will install Content Exchange, configure it and allow the provider to use it on a megabit/sec per month consumption billing model, a portion of which is returned to Novell. For instance, if a communications link delivers 30M-bit/sec throughput and costs $750 per M bit/sec, the charge will be $22,500 per month. Novell will receive a portion of that charge.
Content is accelerated and prepared by the Novell hardware and software located at the ISP or hosting facility and sent to a content delivery provider, such as Akamai, Digital Island or Mirror Image, for distribution to customers. According to Novell, Web pages are delivered 10 times faster through Content Exchange than directly through an ISP.
Data preparation consists of looking at the format of the data - whether images, dynamic content such as CGI or Active Server Pages, or streaming content - and determining how it is best distributed and the most economic way.
While the Internet Research Group of Los Altos, Calif., estimates that the content delivery market will grow to $6 billion by 2004, they say that its growth is constrained by just this factor - intelligent preparation of data for efficient content delivery.
"This is cool stuff," says Martin Marshall, an analyst with Zona Research in Redwood City, Calif. "It is addressing a difference between content delivery providers' service capabilities. These services can vary as much as 35% between backbones. Content Exchange allows the web server to switch between Akamai, Digital Image and Mirror Image depending on the content and get an optimized path. It also makes it a lot easier in that you don't need to Akamize your data."
Content Exchange acts as a front-end processor in reverse proxy mode to serve content from cache, thus reducing a provider's ability to scale as traffic floods the site.
The package will be available this fall.
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