CDN Featured Article

The IT world is rapidly transforming into an app economy, and the number of applications downloaded and deployed on an annual basis is staggering. While devices are being built equipped to handle a constant influx of applications, networks also need to be able to accommodate the increase in traffic. Managing things at the network infrastructure layer can get tricky and content delivery networks (CDNs) are becoming a popular way to avoid traffic jams.

According to App Annie, the app economy has the potential to double in size by 2020, reaching $101 billion. That translates to an estimated 284.3 billion app store downloads by 2020, driven by increased smartphone adoption and a variety of other factors. And the number of apps is not only increasing, but applications are getting larger as they become more interactive and feature rich. And that means they require more bandwidth and resources, equating to a significant impact on network infrastructure.

CDNs typically work by caching files across a geographically-distributed network, with users accessing the physically closest copies. This system improves transmission speeds while decreasing latency, intelligently finding the quickest and best route for traffic. CDNs also accommodate out of the ordinary traffic fluxes, such as patch rollouts and release dates that could otherwise overload a server during a critical time.

Companies like Teridion, which uses cloud optimized routing to offer high speeds and efficiency, are bringing attention to the importance and benefits of CDN in the app economy. MarketsandMarkets predicts the global CDN market will grow from nearly $5 billion last year to $15.73 billion by 2020, fueled by service provider and carrier needs for better QoE and QoS. Teridion’s Global Cloud Network is unique in that uses an overlay network to route traffic that doesn’t require caching. The platform is easily deployed, may scale on demand and works with a variety of device and cloud providers.

As service providers scramble to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate the app economy, innovative approaches to CDN like Teridion’s will continue to gain prominence. By using virtualization and SDN to create efficiencies over existing networks, this type of CDN is a cost effective and accessible solution for handling the app explosion.