C&W CDN reaches out on multiple ISPs
 
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I may have given Cable & Wireless short shrift in an earlier newsletter when I suggested that the telco only offers content delivery services on its own global network. That's not the case.
I sat down with the content delivery team at Cable & Wireless a week or two ago, and they told me exactly what content delivery network services C&W offers. The services are delivered under the Exodus brand.
When C&W acquired Digital Island about a year and a half ago it not only got Digital Island's 10 data centers, it also got a multibackbone content delivery network originally created by Sandpiper Networks. Sandpiper was a pioneer in the CDN market and was acquired by Digital Island in 1999.
The C&W execs say they have maintained the CDN, decommissioning edge servers in some places and adding them in others, depending on need and performance.
"Our CDN is the same network as what was built by Sandpiper Networks. So, it is a true content delivery network in the sense that it is fully distributed globally, over multiple backbones in hundreds of locations around the world with thousands of edge servers," says Ted Middleton, director of content delivery at Cable & Wireless. "Additionally, it's got what we consider to be a necessary component to be a true CDN: the intellectual property and technology around intelligent routing of traffic to the most appropriate location based on real-time measurement of Internet conditions."
What's more, because C&W now owns the CDN infrastructure, customers have access to private content distribution on the C&W backbone, Middleton says.
"We have a number of points of presence that leverage the C&W network and provide us some synergies and cost optimizations and the ability to meet certain specialized application requirements that other service providers wouldn't be able to do as cost-effectively," he says.
Middleton says the C&W CDN is in about 120 ISPs, in about 300 locations around the world. "Some of those ISPs are Tier 1 backbone ISPs where we have access to multiple other networks. So we have direct access to many hundreds of IP networks," he says.
RELATED LINKS
Dueling lawsuits concern CDN users
Network World, 10/21/02
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.
