* Enterprise CDNs are just the thing for streaming media, Gartner says
Gartner recently released a couple of studies detailing how enterprises can build high-availability networks that will support streaming media. The research firm says enterprise content delivery networks may be the answer.
According to Gartner, ECDNs can help network managers support bandwidth-hogging streaming-media applications. While streaming can overwhelm networks and affect mission-critical applications, ECDN technology and services can address those issues.
Some content, such as video-based training sessions, require on-demand streaming media, which in turn requires an ECDN. Typically, multicasting technologies could address streaming applications, but on-demand content, which users can choose to access at their convenience, poses a bigger threat to network performance.
In a live environment, the enterprise network maintains control over when the content is delivered and can benefit from the one-to-many efficiencies of multicast, Gartner says. But with content served on demand, the enterprise does not control when and where employees view content.
Enter content delivery networks.
Gartner says placing content closer to the end user will increase the streaming quality while also reducing WAN traffic. While content delivery network vendors such as Akamai Technologies and Digital Island (now a division of Cable & Wireless) have proved CDNs work across the public Internet, Gartner says, the ECDN concept is now taking form through companies such as RealNetworks and Microsoft.
To learn more about high-availability networks and enterprise content delivery networks, go to http://www.gartner.com and review the following free research reports: “Will streaming media kill your network?” and “High-availability networking: Q&A from Gartner Symposia.”
