Leveraging A Content Delivery Network
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When most groups begin consideration of a Content Delivery Network (CDN), there are 3 common business drivers a) it is driven from the bad experience a customer has had with your e-portal / complaints you are receiving b) you want to design your site for flash or peak load traffic patterns c) you are seeking to optimize your site to ensure you will have the best chance of success with your ebusiness requirements.
If the business driver is A, then your site is already receiving a bad reputation & you need to work quickly to change the end user experiences based on your sites performance. If your business driver is B or C, you are ahead of the curve and taking the necessary steps to mitigate the common e-business problems, which optimizing your e-portal for your customer's experience is and should be the TOP CONSIDERATION of your e-business. CDN is a technology that assures the optimal digital content transfer quality, prevents speed degradation by distributing servers into key locations on the Internet, and transferring content via the shortest path to the Internet subscriber. CDN Services are built on comprehensive technology and expertise, with consideration given not only to the infrastructural aspects such as servers and networks, but also factors such as content security, authentication and multi-session transfer technology. CDN Services are also leveraged to distribute the traffic load during peak-load traffic patterns There are several groups to consider for Global Content Delivery: Akamai.com, CDNetworks.com, and Verisign.com to name a few. How you determine which solution provider is your best option is an art in itself. By understanding your site & developing the educated vision of how implementing an e-portal optimization technique will benefit your portal, you will maximize your time and effort for this strategic enhancement. What you need to be able to provide for your meetings with the CDN vendors: 1. What is your site designed to provide (UGC, E-commerce / Supply Chain Management / e-portal / IPTV) 2. What is your current e-portal design & how are you designed for Peak load? 3. Understand your customer - where are they located, average repeat %, time duration on your site, which parts of your site get the most views 4. Will your customer appreciate the enhanced experience (since you will now have an additional expense for your portal) 5. What features are important to your customer 6. Is security a high priority 7. Traffic Trends (Peaks and lows) 8. How many views does your site experience over the week / month / year 9. What are the static objects/code that is embedded into my e-portal (gif's, JPEG's, Java, etc) 10. How fast do you need the content to change from the CDN (for the static items) 11. How do you handle dynamic content (and how will the CDN handle dynamic content) 12. Any special requirements your site requires from design aspect 13. Budget for the need (Expect a minimum entry point of $1,000 monthly) 14. Can my application be supported with a Peer to Peer method for content distribution (could help lower costs for the CDN delivery of your content)
15. Timelines to implement a solution Where will need to get clarity for your CDN decision: 1. How long has your group provided this solution? 2. Describe your products and services & how long has your group provided this as a service? 3. Explain your POP design & methodology 4. Describe your Global Footprint and roadmap 5. How many like customers are you providing CDN solutions for? 6. Do you offer object delivery (this service enhances your site by storing embedded objects from your site into their caching servers across the globe for site performance enhancement) 7. Do you offer Streaming delivery (if you are interested in having video's streamed from your website) & what types of streaming is supported with your platform (Flash / Windows, etc) 8. Does your group provide SSL based services 9. Does your group provide services into Asia / China / Europe & what is your current roadmap for expansion into those markets (if it is important to have a global footprint) 10. How well are you funded (this ensures you are able to partner with someone for the time period you intend & not have to change based on limited vision into your partners finances) 11. What information does your reporting tool provide? 12. What is your Service Level Agreement for the service? 13. Can your group pull the streams from my site or do I need to store them into your platform 14. Can you provide Whole Site Delivery 15. How much traffic can you network handle at peak load & how do you determine when to increase this capacity? 16. How do you price your solution? 17. Can you provide 3rd party analytics to provide empirical data on your optimization? 18. Any other special features that apply to my e-portal? By understanding how a CDN can compliment your e-portal, you can leverage the solutions providers to compliment your end goal: Increase in traffic to your portal, secure / scalable design, and ultimately increased customer satisfaction & web-spend pattern results from the non-brick and mortar part of your business.
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