As a producer or publisher of content, your resources need to be focused on your core business. Yet as your site becomes richer in content, you need to address the challenges of growth and scale. At some point, you will need to incorporate a CDN provider into your network infrastructure who can offer the depth and breadth of a content delivery network.
When evaluating a CDN provider, you need to evaluate the following components of their service:
Capacity and Reach: Does your CDN offer an expansive infrastructure that will get you as close to your end-user as possible while offering you true global reach at the same time? Here, the distribution of a CDN's servers, backbone infrastructure, and peering relationships with ISPs can make a dramatic difference in your end user's experience.
Reliability and Deliverability: Does your CDN have the software intelligence and monitoring capabilities to deliver your content based upon real-time Internet conditions that affect routing, load balance, and congestion? The CDN's ability to optimally move content will impact your site upload time and customer satisfaction.
Burst Capabilities: It is important to understand your CDN provider's burst capabilities. How quickly you can change your capacity requirements, as well as the billing ramifications, when you burst beyond your commitment has a significant impact on your ability to scale as well as network costs. With more than 60 CDNs in the marketplace today, it is important to recognize that underlying network capacity varies substantially. A tier 1 CDN can handle whatever size Flash crowd you have while that same audience on a smaller, new CDN might stress its infrastructure to the point of failure.
Traffic Monitoring: Does your CDN offer an easy-to-use portal to monitor your traffic for optimal performance and distribution? It is critical that you can evaluate real-time traffic volumes, overall website usage, abandon and error rates, as well as historical data trends to make the necessary upgrades within your network.
Format Delivery: Not all CDNs are created alike when it comes to their ability to support different delivery protocols. Some are better at HTTP cacheting while others excel at streaming. Some CDNs are good at handling small objects while others are better with large-size objects. Rarely do you find a CDN that can support both well. Choosing the best protocol can make all the difference in the world for your content's ultimate quality and should be a major factor in your selection criteria.
Security and Authentication: Is your content protected? Does your CDN offer the right authentication tools to meet your needs? Whether it is token-based authentication (URL and client checking), geo blocking, referrer blocking, IP blocking, or DRM (just to name a few), you need to ensure that you have highly scalable options at your fingertips.
Customer Service: Response time is critical in this business. Do you receive the appropriate level of support for your needs? Do they have a knowledgeable NOC staff that understands and resolves your issues quickly?
Provisioning and Installation: Does the CDN understand the complexities of your applications to provision your service correctly, the first time? Do its engineers sit down with you for a pre-installation evaluation and design the appropriate configuration?
Competitive Pricing: You get what you pay for. Yes, the cost of content delivery has come down over the past months and year, but price should not be the only factor in your final decision. Certainly choose a CDN provider that is competitive and will continue to be responsive to your future financial requirements.
Maybe you are not ready for a CDN. Use this time to prepare yourself by setting up an account and using it as a safety net under your IP transit for the unexpected spikes in your traffic or unforeseen outages. What better way to learn the true capabilities of a provider?
At the end of the day, you have more choices for your content delivery than ever before. Everyone says they are the best and have all the bells and whistles. Take the time to really evaluate the platform that will serve you best. Find a CDN that will not only work with you now but will help you determine your future requirements. This is a partnership that has a significant impact on your website and company's success.
--Kathy McConnell is the vice president of marketing for BandCon.com.
This article originally appeared in the December issue of AVN Online. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscribe.
