Network World recently had a chance to talk with Drew Major, Novell's chief scientist and a co-founder of Edgix, about Edgix's edgeMedia.
NWW: When you, Kyle Powell and Mark Hurst founded Edgix, what was your goal? What was wrong with the Internet, especially as it related to caching? What did you think you could do to improve it?
Major: I've been keen on caching within Novell for the last four years. Almost three years ago, I realized that satellite would be one of the best delivery mechanisms for delivering content into cache. By "best," I mean the most cost-effective and best way to preload caches with "hot" content. Having a satellite-based cache-filling service made a lot of sense as an adjunct service to Novell's caching products. I talked with Kyle and Mark - and with Novell's approval and support, we decided to put together Edgix.
NWW: Is the Internet now the slowest link for content delivery?
Major: We see the satellite cache-filling service as an enhancement to the existing Internet infrastructure. The Internet itself isn't necessarily the slowest link with regards to content delivery; however, you can't do the over-the-Internet opportunistic cache-filling than you can via satellite. I view satellite as "multicast-in-the-sky," with unlimited scalability at a fixed cost. You can do things over satellite that are cost-prohibitive over the Internet itself.
NWW: What is the role of Edgix's technology, CacheAdvisor, other than to facilitate the transfer of cached data from the Edgix NOC-based cache to the customer's local cache? Acceleration? How does this take place? Is this the patent-pending part of the technology?
Major: The CacheAdvisor pushes content into the local Internet Caching System (ICS) proxy caches and manages the local caches so that the data being opportunistically pushed doesn't override more important cached content. Novell and myself see the Edgix service as a valuable extension to ICS. In a sense, it's like adding a turbocharger to the ICS cache. Edgix's service will save customer's backbone connection costs, as well as significantly improving the user's Internet performance. It's a win-win for everyone.
Edgix: http://www.edgix.com/services.html
RELATED LINKS
Contact Senior Editor Deni Connor
Other recent articles by Connor
Cache panacheNetwork World, 04/10/00.
Cidera sets sights beyond caching
Network World, 02/21/00.
Caching is growing in popularity with the ISPs
Network World, 02/15/99.
