CenterSpan takes CDN to the edge

I recently spoke with Frank Hausmann, the chairman and CEO of a company called CenterSpan. CenterSpan, in Hillsboro, Ore., launched in 1999 and a year later introduced C-StarOne, a peer-to-peer content delivery technology for media and entertainment companies.

This year the company has expanded its focus to include service providers and businesses as well.

Hausmann says CenterSpan competes with traditional content delivery networks (CDN) such as Akamai, Speedera and Mirror Image, as well as newer companies such as peer-to-peer firms Kontiki and Blue Falcon.

"CenterSpan is a fourth-generation CDN, a massively intelligent distributed network," Hausmann says. "We've taken the edge of the Internet, where Akamai left it at ISP POPs, and pushed it all the way to the ultimate edge, which is my desktop or your desktop."

CenterSpan's C-Star technology is a software-based CDN that employs existing hardware. It involves a central seeding server, which handles original streaming packets or other content, as well as caches within PCs throughout the CenterSpan network. What happens is that content is compressed, encrypted and then broken down into file segments. The seed server delivers these segments to the various C-Star caches on user desktops.

That way, when a request for content is made, the C-Star network can determine the best peer caches to serve up the file segments and the best route to deliver them. The segments are then reassembled within the user's desktop.

The idea is that a distributed delivery model can significantly reduce costs for digital delivery. By breaking up files into segments that can be delivered from the network of desktop caches, typical bottlenecks due to low bandwidth or network congestion can be avoided, Hausmann says.

To use C-StarOne, companies must provide subscribers with a small client that is downloaded and that installs a cache on the hard drive of the user's PC. That way, when users log on to the network to receive downloads, they bring with them network resources, as well as a streaming server for their own use.

Kontiki manages digital deliveries

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Network World, 08/26/02

Denise Dubie is a Staff Writer covering network management at Network World. She also works as a freelance writer in the Boston area. You can reach her at ddubie@nww.com.