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Content is any kind of data ranging from text to audio, image, video and so on. Delivering
this content to any location at any time is a critical issue for the success of cloud services.
Smooth delivery of content and a positive user experience have always been the prime concern
of content makers and content providers in world-wide networked environment like cloud
computing. The primary objective is to minimize the page (that is the content in a page) load
time as studies have shown that even a delay of a second in page loading time can negatively
affect customers’ experience significantly.
Forecasting any failure in network delivery and overcoming it has always been a challenge
for content suppliers and the scenario has turned more critical with the adoption of network
centric cloud computing environment. The network requirements for delivering content
have changed extensively during the last decade when large volumes of multimedia content
started pouring in and consumers’ expectation regarding content availability over Internet
shot up.
Computing performance over cloud-based services is very important to encourage cloud
service adoption as consumers are accustomed to working on their personal work-stations in
traditional way of computing. Thus, fast web-content delivery is essential for producing high
performance computing in cloud and for better quality of service (QoS).
Instantaneous delivery of content in cloud is essential for improved user experience.
CHAPTER258
Cloud Computing
15.1.1 The Problem
The problem of delivering content in cloud exists due to the distance between the source of the
content and the locations of content consumers. In most cases, data centers are the originators of
digital content. Cloud service providers set up a limited number of data centers (infrastructure)
around the world and store all content in those data centers. Any request from a user for some
content may travel a long distance over the network depending on the geographical distance
between the data center and the user. Transferring huge content like the high-definition video
files far across the network path to the user may cause performance issue.
A user in Delhi may request some content which is available in a server located in
London. Then the user’s request has to travel thousands of miles through network to reach
the destination. For every request, the server in London has to perform some processing and
return the requested content. Delay in content delivery is primarily caused by the number
of router hops (passing of a network packet from one router to another) between source and
destination nodes. As the number of hops between client device and server increases it causes
the delay between the user request and server response.
To meet the business needs and to fulfill application demands, the cloud-based services
require a real-time information delivery system (like live telecasting of events) to respond
instantaneously. This is only possible when LAN-like performance can be achieved in network
communication for content delivery.
Latency and bandwidth also matter a lot. If too many requests are made for some content
on a particular server, then bottleneck problem will generate and a mild congestion at the
network path can create problems in latency and packet loss. All of these could act as stumbling
blocks for widespread acceptance of cloud services.
Cloud computing is basically built upon the Internet, but cloud based services require LAN
like performance in network communication.
15.1.2 The Solution
Architects have created a new model for content delivery to overcome the above-mentioned
problem. Rather than remotely accessing content from data centers, they started treating
content management as a set of cached services located in servers near consumers. The basic
idea is that instead of accessing data content in cloud centrally stored in a few data centers, it
is better to replicate the instances of the data at different locations. It is much faster to access
an instance of the replicated set of data that has been stored on a server (apart from centrally
located data center) which is close to the user or has a good connection and leading to faster
download-time and less vulnerability to network congestion.
A network of such cached servers made for the faster and efficient delivery of content
is called Content Delivery Network (CDN). Such networks were designed to support the
delivery of any volume of growing content without clogging the network. This helps the
organizations to scale their applications. CDN played a big role in the emergence of cloud
computing which is about delivering everything over the network including data and
computing services. And with time the demarcating lines between the cloud and CDN have
blurred. A CDN actually drives cloud adoption through enhanced performance, scalability,
security and cost savings.259
Content Delivery Network
Establishing content delivery network has been one of the major areas of interest in cloud
computing
Content is any kind of data ranging from text to audio, image, video and so on. Delivering
this content to any location at any time is a critical issue for the success of cloud services.
Smooth delivery of content and a positive user experience have always been the prime concern
of content makers and content providers in world-wide networked environment like cloud
computing. The primary objective is to minimize the page (that is the content in a page) load
time as studies have shown that even a delay of a second in page loading time can negatively
affect customers’ experience significantly.
Forecasting any failure in network delivery and overcoming it has always been a challenge
for content suppliers and the scenario has turned more critical with the adoption of network
centric cloud computing environment. The network requirements for delivering content
have changed extensively during the last decade when large volumes of multimedia content
started pouring in and consumers’ expectation regarding content availability over Internet
shot up.
Computing performance over cloud-based services is very important to encourage cloud
service adoption as consumers are accustomed to working on their personal work-stations in
traditional way of computing. Thus, fast web-content delivery is essential for producing high
performance computing in cloud and for better quality of service (QoS).
Instantaneous delivery of content in cloud is essential for improved user experience.
CHAPTER258
Cloud Computing
15.1.1 The Problem
The problem of delivering content in cloud exists due to the distance between the source of the
content and the locations of content consumers. In most cases, data centers are the originators of
digital content. Cloud service providers set up a limited number of data centers (infrastructure)
around the world and store all content in those data centers. Any request from a user for some
content may travel a long distance over the network depending on the geographical distance
between the data center and the user. Transferring huge content like the high-definition video
files far across the network path to the user may cause performance issue.
A user in Delhi may request some content which is available in a server located in
London. Then the user’s request has to travel thousands of miles through network to reach
the destination. For every request, the server in London has to perform some processing and
return the requested content. Delay in content delivery is primarily caused by the number
of router hops (passing of a network packet from one router to another) between source and
destination nodes. As the number of hops between client device and server increases it causes
the delay between the user request and server response.
To meet the business needs and to fulfill application demands, the cloud-based services
require a real-time information delivery system (like live telecasting of events) to respond
instantaneously. This is only possible when LAN-like performance can be achieved in network
communication for content delivery.
Latency and bandwidth also matter a lot. If too many requests are made for some content
on a particular server, then bottleneck problem will generate and a mild congestion at the
network path can create problems in latency and packet loss. All of these could act as stumbling
blocks for widespread acceptance of cloud services.
Cloud computing is basically built upon the Internet, but cloud based services require LAN
like performance in network communication.
15.1.2 The Solution
Architects have created a new model for content delivery to overcome the above-mentioned
problem. Rather than remotely accessing content from data centers, they started treating
content management as a set of cached services located in servers near consumers. The basic
idea is that instead of accessing data content in cloud centrally stored in a few data centers, it
is better to replicate the instances of the data at different locations. It is much faster to access
an instance of the replicated set of data that has been stored on a server (apart from centrally
located data center) which is close to the user or has a good connection and leading to faster
download-time and less vulnerability to network congestion.
A network of such cached servers made for the faster and efficient delivery of content
is called Content Delivery Network (CDN). Such networks were designed to support the
delivery of any volume of growing content without clogging the network. This helps the
organizations to scale their applications. CDN played a big role in the emergence of cloud
computing which is about delivering everything over the network including data and
computing services. And with time the demarcating lines between the cloud and CDN have
blurred. A CDN actually drives cloud adoption through enhanced performance, scalability,
security and cost savings.259
Content Delivery Network
Establishing content delivery network has been one of the major areas of interest in cloud
computing