Moving Into the Cloud

By Michael Gordon , Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder
Limelight Networks

Simply defined, cloud computing for the enterprise means moving to an infrastructure model where certain computing functions—software, processing power, storage, applications—are outsourced and made available on demand by a third party.

This computing-as-a-service scenario enables companies to focus resources and people on building their core businesses, rather than on the IT support required to maintain them. This model is growing in popularity. It provides companies with more flexibility to meet varying demand levels, and the pay-as-you-go function helps keep infrastructure costs in check with actual usage. Cloud computing lets businesses consume only the resources they need, while making available massively scalable platforms to absorb sudden spikes in usage.

There are challenges with cloud computing, however, and the big one is the performance of the “cloud” itself. Since access to web applications, services, or rich media is dependent on the quality of an Internet connection, poor connection or delivery performance can cause the risks to outweigh the benefits.

To counteract this, companies need partners that can absorb a lot of the risk and responsibility of content delivery. A content delivery network (CDN) provider like Limelight Networks helps businesses shoulder the burden of maintaining service uptime. At the same time, a CDN partner enables small and mid-size enterprises to take advantage of economies of scale they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.

Using the Internet; Bypassing the Internet

The Internet is valuable because of its global reach, but it has distinct limitations. To get around these limitations, there are three things that a CDN partner should provide. First, quality-assured Internet delivery requires massive storage centers around the world. These delivery centers are used to store content closer to consumers wherever they’re located. Second, a CDN provider must connect with a large number of access networks at multiple locations worldwide. This requires agreements with Internet service providers to connect CDN-operated server clusters to their broadband networks. Third, a CDN partner should provide a way to quickly and reliably move content to those last-mile storage facilities.

Limelight Networks operates a private fiber network for sending content between server clusters. Rather than rely on the Internet, which is subject to congestion, the Limelight Networks CDN uses this optical backbone to ensure lightning-fast delivery of content, even when it isn’t stored at a server local to the consumer making the request.

The fiber network is particularly useful for content that may not be popular enough to make it to every edge server cache. Just because a piece of content—say a new Facebook application—isn’t popular on one day, doesn’t mean it won’t be requested around the world the next. The fiber network is insurance against the unpredictable demand of any company’s customer base.