Content Delivery Networks

Book description

The definitive guide to developing robust content delivery networks

This book examines the real-world engineering challenges of developing robust content delivery networks (CDNs) and provides the tools required to overcome those challenges and to ensure high-quality content delivery that fully satisfies operators’ and consumers' commercial objectives. It is informed by the author’s two decades of experience building and delivering large, mission-critical live video, webcasts, and radio streaming, online and over private IP networks.

Following an overview of the field, the book cuts to the chase with in-depth discussions—laced with good-natured humor—of a wide range of design considerations for different network topologies. It begins with a description of the author's own requirement filtration processes. From there it moves on to initial sketches, through considerations of stakeholder roles and responsibilities, to the complex challenges of managing change in established teams. Agile versus waterfall considerations within large blue chip companies, security, commercial models, and value chain alignment are explored in detail. Featured throughout the book are numerous "what if" scenarios that help provide a clear picture of the wide spectrum of practical contexts for which readers may be tasked with building and implementing a CDN. In addition, the book:

  • Discusses delivery of live, catch-up, scheduled on-demand, TVOD and SVOD
  • Offers insights into the decisions that can to be made when architecting a content distribution system over IP-based networks
  • Covers CDN topologies, including Edge-Caching, Streaming-Splitting, Pure-Play, Operator, Satellite, and Hybrid
  • Examines computer hosting and orchestration for dedicated appliances and virtualization
  • Includes real-world cases covering everything from IETF, regulatory considerations, and policy formation, to coding, hardware vendors, and network operators
  • Considers the future of CDN technologies and the market forces driving its evolution

Written by a back-room engineer for back-room engineers, Content Delivery Networks gets readers up to speed on the real-world challenges they can face as well as tried-and-true strategies for addressing those challenges in order to ensure the delivery of the high-quality content delivery networks that clients demand and users expect. 

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Frontispiece
    1. Topics Include
    2. About the Book
    3. Synposis
    4. Unique Perspective
    5. Market Need
    6. Audience
  4. 1 Welcome
    1. 1.1 A Few Words of Introduction
    2. 1.2 The “Why” of this Book
    3. 1.3 Relevant Milestones of the Personal Voyage
  5. 2 Context and Orientation
    1. 2.1 History of Streaming
    2. 2.2 Industry Evolution
    3. 2.3 Consumer Adoption
    4. 2.4 Encode > Serve > Play
    5. 2.5 What is a CDN: A Simple Model
    6. 2.6 Cloud Inside – New Generation
    7. 2.7 The Three Generations of CDN
    8. 2.8 Software Definition
    9. 2.9 “Service Velocity” and the Operator
  6. 3 Workflows
    1. 3.1 Live Event Focus
    2. 3.2 Backhaul/Contribution and Acquisition
    3. 3.3 Cloud Saas
  7. 4 Publishing
    1. 4.1 Publishers, OVPs, CDNs, and MCNs
    2. 4.2 Small Objects, Large Objects, or Continuous Streams
    3. 4.3 Desktop and Device Delivery Applications
    4. 4.4 Request Routing (The Dark Art of the CDN)
    5. 4.5 Logging Analytics and the Devil in the Detail
  8. 5 Service Velocity
  9. 6 Charging for IP‐Delivered Content
    1. 6.1 Lessons from the Music Industry
    2. 6.2 Success Cases
    3. 6.3 Failure Cases
    4. 6.4 General Commentary on Commercial Models
  10. 7 Competition and the Regulatory Environment
    1. 7.1 ISOC, ITU, and WSIS
    2. 7.2 Policy – Net Neutrality
    3. 7.3 Value Chain Alignment with QoS and SLAPropositions
    4. 7.4 Layer‐2 Workaround?
  11. 8 Cultural Change
    1. 8.1 Traditional Broadcasters
    2. 8.2 The Millenial Subscriber
    3. 8.3 ISP and Content Providers
    4. 8.4 Telco and Telecoms
    5. 8.5 Content Providers
  12. 9 Preparing for Change in Your Design
    1. 9.1 Preface and Philosophy
    2. 9.2 Models, Diagrams, and Schematics
    3. 9.3 How to do a Good Diagram?
    4. 9.4 Scenario Planning
    5. 9.5 Risk, Responsibility, and Reassurance
    6. 9.6 Optimization and Upsell
    7. 9.7 Value Creation/Agility
    8. 9.8 Expectation Management
  13. 10 Multicast – the Sleeping Giant
    1. 10.1 Multicast Recap
    2. 10.2 What Happens Now?
    3. 10.3 To Singularity and Beyond
  14. 11 Deep‐Dives (Case Studies)
    1. 11.1 Hitting the TV Screen – IPTV/Hybrid TV and OTT
    2. 11.2 Creating Nasdaq’s Cloud‐Based Virtual Workflow
  15. 12 Wrap Up
  16. Index
  17. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Content Delivery Networks
  • Author(s): Dom Robinson
  • Release date: July 2017
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119249870