| Global Equities déploie son PRA avec Equinix | | mai 2008 par Marc Jacob | | Global Equities applique sa politique de PRA en utilisant les services de l’hébergeur à valeur ajoutée Equinix. Global Equities utilise les infrastructures d’Equinix à Roissy en louant sur place une surface dédiée de presque 100 m² dans laquelle 20 postes de travail identiques à ceux du siège ont été installés. | | Depuis la création de Global Equities en 1990, cette société, comme le milieu du trading et celui de la communication a énormément évolué. Les métiers ont donc changé et les outils également. Il a toujours fallu s’adapter rapidement aux besoins évolutifs et aux contraintes de plus en plus stricts imposées par les clients (qualité, efficacité, réactivité). Pour les équipes informatiques de ce secteur d’activité, aller au devant de ces besoins de solutions innovantes est devenu un réel enjeu pour la société qui dépend à 100% de son réseau et de son infrastructure informatique. Garantir une continuité de service en mettant en place un PRA efficace est l’un des objectifs principaux du DSI dans une société de trading comme Global Equities. C’est dans ce contexte qu’il y a 6 ans, Olivier Bisiaux a réfléchi à cette problématique en analysant tous les aspects technologiques, administratifs et humains du PRA. La facilité consistait à agir comme la plupart des organismes financiers et à répondre aux offres d’IBM qui possédait un quasi monopole sur ce marché de l’hébergement de backup. Mais Olivier Bisiaux avait une idée très précise de ses besoins et ne voulait pas se faire imposer une méthode qui ne prenait pas en compte l’évolution rapide des besoins d’une infrastructure tel que celle de Global Equities. Cette offre trop formatée ne correspondait pas aux besoins réels ni à l’ambition de la société. Aussi après une longue recherche de prestataires, Global Equities a décidé de monter un partenariat avec France Telecom. France Telecom étant le fournisseur des lignes téléphoniques indispensable à la continuité de service de Global Equities, cette configuration prenait tout son sens. De nature technologique et avec une approche métier bourse, ce partenariat a conduit FT à héberger le site de backup de Global Equities pendant deux ans dans l’un de ses centres informatique. Cependant, pour des raisons stratégiques France Telecom a renoncé à développer cette offre de service et Global Equities a donc recherché un autre prestataire pour l’hébergement de son site de secours. Même si l’éventualité de maintenir son propre PRA avait été évoquée par Global Equities, le coût de cette solution et les compétences requises pour le maintien en condition opérationnelle par des les équipes techniques l’en ont dissuadé. C’est alors qu’Equinix et Global Equities sont entrés en contact. Le retour d’expériences d’Equinix dans le milieu de la finance de divers pays Européens a poussé Global Equities à faire confiance à ce nouvel acteur sur le marché français. Global Equities avait un cahier des charges bien précis et recherchait la location d’espace non mutualisée en état de fonctionnement permanent. « Le prix très concurrentiel de ses prestations, sa situation géographique et son expertise acquise auprès de place financière telle que celle de Frankfort ont également pesé dans notre décision » précise Olivier Bisiaux « Autre point positif le site d’Equinix est raccordé à de multiples réseaux d’opérateurs Telecoms et de fournisseurs de réseaux métropolitains en fibre optique. » Ainsi depuis 2004, Global Equities a donc choisi de faire confiance aux prestations d’Equinix. En plus du retour d’expérience en matière de PRA dans le monde de la finance, Equinix est l’un des seuls hébergeurs européens à avoir obtenu la certification ISO 9001 – 2000. Dans ce secteur d’activité très surveillé par les Autorités de Marché, Global Equities en ne cédant pas à l’offre d’IBM se devait de justifier d’un plan de continuité de service irréprochable. En effet, les salles de marchés sont soumises à une charte de qualité très stricte supervisée par l’AMF qui impose son droit de regard très régulièrement sur les moyens mis en place en terme d’infrastructure informatique et notamment la crédibilité de la solution de PRA. Au regard du cahier des charges de Global Equities, Equinix bénéficiait également d’un environnement idéal comme site de secours. D’une part son emplacement à proximité de Roissy Charles de Gaules offrait à Global Equities l’assurance d’une facilité d’accès au site de secours en cas de déclenchement du PRA. De plus, le fait que ce site de sauvegarde ne soit pas dans Paris ou dans la proche banlieue est une sécurité supplémentaire en cas de grande catastrophe (attentat, inondation…). Enfin, l’infrastructure hôtelière aux alentours permet à Global Equities de proposer un environnement agréable à ses salariés ou ses clients qui devraient se rendre sur les lieux. « Le PRA ne doit pas se concevoir qu’en site d’hébergement. La notion de PRA va bien au-delà de cet aspect technique et informatique : il s’agit d’un tout ! Le PRA c’est aussi la sauvegarde physique du matériel, l’accompagnement psychologique des personnes,… » En 2004, Global Equities a donc rejoint les infrastructures d’Equinix à Roissy en louant sur place une surface dédiée de presque 100 m² dans laquelle 20 postes de travail identiques à ceux du siège ont été installés. Deux serveurs ont été installés dans un des IXDatacentres d’Equinix pour assurer une réplication par mirroring des applications et données vitales de la salle de marché. Pour les applications moins critiques telles que certaines applications de gestion comme la comptabilité, une sauvegarde de back up est réalisée chaque soir. Ce site de secours intégré dans les infrastructures d’Equinix est cependant totalement administrable depuis le siège social de Global Equities à Paris. Les serveurs fonctionnant en mirroring des opérateurs peuvent travailler en parallèle chez Global Equities au siège et sur le site de Backup. Pour Global Equities le PRA ne s’arrête pas au système informatique. En effet il est inconcevable d’assurer une continuité de service de la salle de marché sans le téléphone ou la messagerie. Pour assurer la continuité de service et d’utilisation de la salle de secours, en cas de sinistre, Global Equities a obtenu de France Télécom la mise en place d’un dispositif permettant la bascule de son système Etrali et de toutes les LS téléphoniques. En effet à partir d’un commutateur central de France Télécom regroupant les LS louées par Global Equities des tuyaux de trente lignes relient à la fois le siège et la salle de Back up chez Equinix, un basculement des lignes peut ainsi être réalisé instantanément à la demande. En ce qui concerne la messagerie en raison du lien entre les noms de domaines et les classes d’adresses IP, Global Equities a déporté son serveur de mail chez un prestataire externe (Atrium) relié à différents opérateurs Internet. Ce dispositif permet à partir d’un seul nom de domaine et avec des liaisons IP à 20 M vers les deux sites, de conserver une messagerie opérationnelle. Dans le cadre du traitement des ordres de bourse Global Equities qui est membre de nombreuses bourses mondiales s’est affranchi du monopole de GLTRADE toujours dans l’optique de la continuité de service. En effet Global Equities a progressivement doublé son architecture de négociation en utilisant en parallèle de GLNET utilisé par GLtrade, le FIX protocole (Financial Information Exchange). Le FIX protocole est un standard de message développé dans le but de faciliter les échanges d’informations relatifs aux transactions boursières. Ce standard a été développé avec la collaboration de banques, courtiers, des bourses d’investisseurs institutionnels, d’industriels et d’association venant du monde entier. Dans le cadre de son plan de continuité de service Olivier Bisiaux s’est également penché : • Sur l’aspect administratif en stockant chez Equinix les doubles de documents administratifs ainsi que du papier à lettre, des cartes de visites, etc.
• Sur l’aspect humain en prévoyant une cellule psychologique d’accueil dans un Hôtel près d’Equinix, la mise en place du PRA pouvant se faire suite à des cas de sinistre particulièrement déstabilisant pour les employés de la société.
 Global Equities
Global Equities est une Entreprise d’Investissement agréée par le Comité des Établissements de Crédit et des Entreprises d’Investissement (CECEI). Elle se compose d’une soixantaine de professionnels travaillant au service de l’investisseur institutionnel dans le respect des règles déontologiques. Dans l’Euronext intégré, Global Equities offre une couverture pan-européenne des accès marchés : Global Equities est un acteur direct agissant en qualité de Trading Member Firm (TMF) sur les marchés réglementés. De plus, Global Equities est membre Eurex et Euronext ce qui lui assure une couverture complète des produits dérivés cotés. Sur les autres marchés Européens (hors euronext), ils interviennent également directement sur les marchés de la Deutsche Börse. Les valeurs confiées à Global Equities s’inscrivent dans 4 pôles de compétences : Télécommunications, Distribution – Luxe, Médias, Services Informatiques & Logiciels. |
Update: I have written a follow up to this article which is here.
Today Adobe announced the public beta of a new Flash Player that is going to change the way we all use the Internet. More importantly, the new player changes the economics of the Internet.
Interestingly the two really key features are not getting much play in the news yet as people have focused on the new graphics capabilities. But graphics is not what is really interesting here.
The first key Flash Player feature is a peer-to-peer (p2p) technology from a company they acquired called Amicima in 2006.
The second key feature is that Flash can now save files directly to your local hard disk.
These two new capabilities together make any type of p2p application trivial. Whether you are trying to roll your own LimeWire, or you have more honorable intentions such as implementing a server-less voice over IP (VOIP) application such as Skype, the new Flash Player will make these kinds of applications trivial.
What is even more interesting than cloning existing applications, is the innovation that will be unleashed by making p2p technology an assumed part of the web protocol stack. For example, it will be a few hundred lines of code to write an AIR application that will allow you to drop a file onto an icon and have that file appear on your buddy's computer.
But the most significant impact of all of this will be economic. As I see it, this is death to the content distribution networks (CDNs). The CDNs make their money providing companies the ability to centrally store and serve heavily accessed and/or large files. For years, companies like Kontiki and Red Swoosh tried to popularize p2p delivery networks that would make it possible to move large files without using such central servers. So if you wanted to watch a video or download a large game, these p2p systems would pull that file from other users who already had it instead of from the central store.
The problem with these p2p delivery networks was that not enough people wanted to download an application that only had the purpose of saving the service provider money. In other words, companies like Red Swoosh and Kontiki didn't have enough end-user benefit to get people to download them.
But because people download Flash anyway, the chicken/egg problem associated with getting the p2p software onto people's computers is eliminated.
What all of this means is every major video site will now be able to deliver video streams, while using only a trickle of bandwidth. When the Skpye founders introduced their video service Joost, this was what they hoped to be their secret weapon. They wanted to operate a video network in the same way they operated Skype, i.e. at very low cost. But people preferred to watch videos in their browser without downloading anything special.
But baking p2p into Flash means *all* web video sites will be able to deliver video using minimal central server bandwidth. As a result, the largest and best CDN customers will disappear, or at least will radically reduce their needs because, in effect, every video website will have the low cost of operation of Joost.
Of course this is not just about video. If you have any large file movement needs that require a CDN, Flash-based p2p will be on your short list of engineering imperatives.
This new version of Flash, combined with Amazon's super low cost S3 storage system will be fatal to many CDNs. Personally, I'd be shorting every public CDN stock around the time that Adobe leaves beta with this stuff, because it spells real trouble for that market.
And if you ignore me now, don't say I didn't warn ya. For the CDN market, this is Armageddon.
Google Expands AdSense For Video, Sets Deals With Tremor, YouMe, Others
In a bid to accelerate its role in the burgeoning online video advertising marketplace, search giant Google this morning is announcing a slew of deals expanding its AdSense for video beta. To date, the AdSense program has focused mainly on enabling Web publishers to serve text-only ads. The video beta version, enables publishers to serve targeted, contextually-relevant video graphical ads and text overlays, and is seen as an alternative to the pre-roll an post-roll advertising clips that have become the industry's default standard advertising format. Google has been working on ways to expand its reach into video ever since its $1.65 billion acquisitions of YouTube in 2006, and recently began accelerating its role in TV advertising sales, as well, via its AdWords For TV program, which enables advertisers to buy addressable TV advertising on cable and satellite TV systems. Early this morning, Google announced deals with the Tremor Media and YouMe video advertising networks, two of what are expected to be several partnership deals for its AdSense for video expansion. Tremor said it has incorporated "one-click integration" of Google's contextually targeted ads into its dynamic ad insertion platform, Ad-inStream, for publishers in Tremor Media's network to accept targeted Google AdSense for video advertising formats with only a check-box. According to comScore, Tremor Media provides access to consumers through their network of more than 800 aggregated sites that reach 94 million unique users every month. Publishers across Tremor Media's network can now support traditional text overlays through Google's AdSense for video beta, providing contextually targeted advertising by leveraging a video's metadata. In addition, Tremor will also support InVideo graphical and rich media overlays that aid advertisers with a consistent brand message across their traditional display advertising as well as emerging video ad formats.
Internap signed on social network Moli, subsidiary of Mainstream Holdings, as a colocation and IP services customer. Moli launched in January of 2008. The site is targeted predominantly to a professional and small-business crowd. It differentiates itself through levels of privacy; users create and manage multiple profiles through one account. .....
By BusinessWire COSTA MESA, Calif., BUSINESS WIRE -- Content delivery service provider BandCon, Inc. is pleased to host its 3rd Content Networking Forum on Tuesday, May 20th, at the Brasserie Ruhlmann restaurant during the Streaming Media East tradeshow. The three-hour event will provide a platform for providers in the content networking space to interact directly with industry experts to address a broad array of issues. The forum will feature a discussion with the following panelists: Eric Troyer, Equinix, Donald Sumbry, Revver, Josh Gagliardi, Highwinds and Dan Golding, Tier 1 Research. They will review the latest industry trends and strategies for implementing (CDN) content delivery networking services, carrier neutral colocation, transit and peering. The panel will also focus on answering the question: "What do you do when your content site grows faster than your infrastructure?" "This event is truly becoming a venue for content providers, systems engineers, technology specialists and network administrators in our industry to come together in a casual setting and have a great exchange of information," said Todd Braning, Vice President of Network Services for BandCon who will lead the panel discussion. "We look forward to hosting these forums several times a year around the country." The event is expected to draw more than 40 Web-related companies. Registered attendees range from the largest content delivery network and colocation providers to the leading video content sites and the hot, new social networking sites. To register for this event, use the following link: http://www.bandcon.com/events.html About BandCon BandCon is a content delivery service provider for large Internet-based content owners. The firm specializes in developing custom network solutions for IP transit, transport, content delivery networking (CDN), peering, collocation/power, and managed services that are unmatched in terms of flexibility and scalability. BandCon's 10 Gbps backbone provides rich content delivery capability throughout North America. The firm's signature Content Delivery System(TM) enables BandCon to deliver a full suite of services to customers at any stage of the growth cycle, from startup through maturity. Customers include MySpace, Revver, Vonage, Itiva Networks and Immem. The company's Web address is www.bandcon.com.
Going Interactive is pleased to announce that our micro site for Internap's "Ultimate Online Experience" has gone live. Be sure to click on the Online Resources tab and check out the full "Evolution Creates Opportunity" video GI produced.
Om Malik, Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 9:00 PM Don’t blame me for getting caught up in the whole hoopla around media-buying-media…we media types are known for being narcissists. Blame me for not being able to blog about the new beta of Adobe Flash Player 10, which has built-in P2P features and is able to save files to the local drives. I was reminded by Hank Williams about the new release, and its big impact on the world of video in particular and other web apps in general.As some of you might remember, I wrote about Adobe’s P2P ambitions that revolved around buying a company called Amicima.
Through LinkedIn, we were able to find that amicima co-founder Mathew Kaufman has been working as Senior Computer Scientist for Adobe since October 2006. His co-founder, Michael Thornburgh, is also said to be at Adobe. Both of them have vast experience in networking and P2P technologies. The two of them worked at Tycho Networks, and later at DSL.net, after that company acquired Tycho. I have been following this closely, and my sources say that this is a solid technology with the potential to seriously disrupt the CDN market, especially those companies that rely on clients. I wonder, for example, what will happen to RedSwoosh, which is owned by Akamai, or to other, similar providers of P2P-based client services. I think one shouldn’t get caught up in the CDN-killer aspect of this technology. From what I have learnt, there are some elements of this technology that make it necessary to have a server infrastructure for situations where traversing NAT’s/Firewalls isn’t possible. It also needs a centralized registrar is also needed that maintains the ID’s of all the P2P clients (nodes) connected to a service. In other words, a CDN operator work with Adobe, charging for traffic that goes through their proxies as and when needed by the Flash 10. By the way Adobe has an arrangement with Kontiki, a CDN operator of sorts. Williams’ post digs deeper into this in a thoughtful, intelligent way. “[I]s the innovation that will be unleashed by making P2P technology an assumed part of the web protocol stack?” he wonders. (I think that’s why it’s important that we start harping about upload speeds on our broadband connections.) The reason we should pay attention to this product is Adobe’s distribution strength. The company can easily upgrade its Flash clients and instantly become owner of one of the largest P2P services. What that means is that now anyone can contemplate a Joost-like service that works within a browser. Using AIR to extend those P2P abilities to the desktop would be fairly easy as well. Ironically, both Joost and Jaman have spent considerable time, money and attention doing this. The early version of Flash is rather simple, but it does offer a way to lower bandwidth costs while still delivering high-quality video. In addition, companies like Tokbox (our story) and Woome (NTV story) can add more functionality, such as cheaper, live video-voice service, without spending too much money. It’s clear that Adobe is not going to become a huge P2P service overnight. But this release does portend to an interesting future.
ICE Connectivity MatrixICE HubLocation: Atlanta* AT&T Chicago* Equinix London Redbus New York AT&T Singapore 1-Net * Designates ICE Primary/Secondary DataCenter
Trading on the IntercontinentalExchange was halted for three hours today when the exchange shut down its system due to a power outage. The power failure in the company's primary data center in Chicago began at 10:30 a.m. ET and lasted for nearly an hour, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Loeffer said in an e-mail sent from the exchange's headquarters in Atlanta. Over-the-counter-trading markets resumed operations at 1:30 p.m., and the futures markets reopened at 1:50 p.m. ET. The outage caused all orders to be suspended. No further details were provided about the incident.
And even when the new entrepreneurs do take V.C. money, they get it, now, on highly favorable terms. That's because the old guard is helping guide the new -- men like Rose and Zuckerberg (nearly everyone here is male, by the way) have forged deep relationships with innovators who'd been burned by V.C.s during the boom. Rose's mentor is Jay Adelson, a fascinating figure who still can't talk about Equinix, the networking company he started in 1998, without choking up. Adelson was pushed out from Equinix by folks he calls "the sweater vests" -- V.C.s, middle managers, investment bankers -- and he's adopted a rallying cry in his efforts to help Rose succeed with Digg: "Fuck the sweater vests." The attitude has worked. With Adelson's help, Rose managed to secure financing while still keeping a huge stake in his firm, assuring that he'll be the sole decider of his fate.
What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?A CDN is a system of servers using advanced software for organizing, storing, and streaming website content for the express purpose of optimizing the flow of the content to end-users. It distributes the content to multiple, geographically diverse nodes and then serves the content from whichever node is closest to the end-user, minimizing packet travel and increasing speed and efficiency. There are two types of CDNs—virtual networks that connect end-users directly to the server and hybrid networks that combine CDNs with peer-to-peer networks. What are the advantages of using CDNLayer over standard Internet content delivery? CDNLayer delivers content more efficiently than standard Internet content delivery, letting businesses meet the growing demand for rich, online media that require large bandwidths. Standard Internet delivery sends content data over general Internet routes from the host server’s location to the end-user’s location. This takes into account neither the host server’s proximity to the end-user, nor possible traffic jams between the two. CDNLayer, however, moves the content from the host server to a node that is geographically closer to the end-user. This avoids potential network congestion and decreases latency, increasing delivery speed and providing consistent and reliable file transfer times. In addition, as a solution created specifically for content delivery, CDNLayer includes tools that provide more content management and delivery control, helping with content monetization. What types of content are generally delivered using a CDN? Content Delivery Networks are most effective in delivering rich media content—focused in three main categories: streaming, progressive downloading and caching. Streaming video, video that can be delivered live or on-demand, profits from the decreased latency provided with the use of CDNLayer. Video streamed over CDNLayer does not require the excessive buffering or suffer from the jitters experienced with traditional internet content delivery; and end users can access any portion of the video stream without waiting through long load or download times. Media downloads also experience increases in speed and decreases in latency with the use of CDNLayer. CDNLayer load balances the download route to deliver virtually any type of Internet download to the end user, including: game downloads, new software, software upgrades, video, HD video, and audio. CDNLayer is also the optimal solution for delivering cached Internet content that may be static but is frequently accessed; used for companies that provide services such as online shopping, guided tour sites, social networking sites, financial sites, hotel and travel sites and web hosting companies. Who should use CDNLayer? What kind of content is it best suited for? Any company or individual that wants to make content available on the Internet should consider CDNLayer, particularly those wanting to deliver content that requires large transfer rates, such as video. This includes a wide variety of industries, as caching, streaming, and downloading services are a regular part of social networking, entertainment, media, gaming, software, broadcast, e-commerce, and e-banking websites alike. What file formats does CDNLayer support? SoftLayer’s CDN Supports Flash Media and Windows Media for streaming files. SoftLayer’s CDN also supports a wide array of encoding formats for downloading or caching media—including Windows Media Player, Flash Media, DivX, H.264, Move Media Player, Microsoft Silverlight, QuickTime, MP3, RealSystem G2, RealPlayer, Real Networks, HTML, TXT, GIF, JPG, and PDF. How much does CDNLayer cost? CDNLayer is extremely cost effective because it is built on top of existing IP infrastructure and optimizes already existing bandwidth. Its pricing is based only on the amount of bandwidth actually used without excess expenses for unused services, creating a very efficient cost structure. CDNLayer is priced with a low monthly charge of $20 for the first 200GB of data transfer. After that, we charge only $0.20 per GB transferred. This is a significant discount to current market rates that generally start at $0.50 per GB and come with large bandwidth commitments or additional charges. We want to stay true to our model of bringing enterprise-class services to all of our customers. How much faster is CDNLayer compared with standard Internet content delivery? The difference in delivery speeds between CDNLayer and standard Internet delivery varies based upon network conditions. The strength of CDNLayer lies in its ability to maintain reliable, consistent speed of delivery regardless of external network conditions. When standard Internet delivery is at its slowest, the content delivered over CDNLayer will remain virtually unaffected. CDNLayer also creates levels of redundancy for content distribution. If a single CDNLayer node is out, the content is simply served from another location, thus reducing website outages and improving overall performance. What is the difference in video performance between streaming media and progressive downloading? With progressive downloading, video content is delivered chronologically and the end user must wait for content to be delivered before it can be viewed. With video streaming, the end user can skip forward through video content without the need for it to first be downloaded to the user’s computer. What technology is behind CDNLayer? How does it actually work? CDNLayer is powered on two levels. The underlying level is the network infrastructure—a global Internet backbone connecting various nodes on multiple continents. This allows content to be delivered from an optimal proximity to the end-user. The second level is the operating software which directs content between the nodes and maintains load balancing and content integrity. How does CDNLayer determine which node to use? CDNLayer monitors an end-user’s location as well as network traffic and chooses which node will deliver the content with the least latency. It begins by analyzing the node with closest geographic proximity to the end-user. If the node’s performance will be compromised due to hardware, bandwidth traffic, or other issues, CDNLayer will direct content around the point of failure to maintain ultimate end user experience. How many nodes does CDNLayer use? CDNLayer currently delivers content across 21 nodes across the globe: 15 nodes in the Americas, 4 in Asia, and 2 in Europe. This provides geographic diversity and the ability to deliver content from some of the largest Internet peering points in the world. SoftLayer and its partner, Internap, will continue to add new nodes to CDNLayer to expand the reach and capabilities of the service. How reliable is CDNLayer? CDNLayer is substantially more reliable for content delivery than standard unmonitored Internet delivery. By reducing stress on the host server and distributing content over a network of nodes, information can be stored securely and delivered consistently. Particularly for large file downloads or streaming media where latency can create interruptions, CDNLayer helps content arrive rapidly and without jitters, excess buffering, or service interruptions.
 | CDNLayer | May 14, '08 6:10 PM
for everyone |
What it is CDNLayer is SoftLayer’s industry-leading content delivery network (CDN). It uses a system of servers running advanced software for organizing, storing, and streaming website content to end-users. Rather than serving content directly from the host server to the end-user, CDNLayer moves the content source from the host server to a node that is geographically closer to the end-user. This minimizes the distance the data has to travel, avoiding network traffic jams, and decreasing latency. CDNLayer includes tools for improved management and control, helping with digital rights management and content monetization. In addition, it features the ease-of-use and high level of control for which SoftLayer is known. Key advantages High-Quality Content and Media Rich Web Sites — CDNLayer places content as close to the end-user as possible, making downloading, streaming, and website loading faster and more consistent. This allows websites to include richer, more creative content without sacrificing performance. Secure Content Management — CDNLayer provides secure, streamlined tools for managing content and monetization. Broader Geographic Reach — CDNLayer pushes content to server nodes placed around the world, optimizing the speed and reliability of content delivery to end-users regardless of location. This is especially advantageous as Internet subscriber rates continue to increase globally. Cost-Effective, Performance-Neutral Scalability — CDNLayer spreads its workload over multiple servers in diverse locations, so increases in content demand does not slow down or compromise delivery. CDNLayer is priced based on bandwidth used, eliminating the cost of excess capacity. | Nodes |  |  | Amsterdam | | Atlanta | | Boston | | Chicago | | Dallas | | Denver | | El Segundo | | Hong Kong | | Houston | | London | | Miami | | New York | | Philadelphia | | Phoenix | | Seattle | | Singapore | | Sunnyvale | | Sydney | | Tokyo | | Toronto | | Virginia |
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 9:00 AM PT  The thumbnail on the left depicts a service that, if it fully delivers as promised, has a decent chance to transform the web as profoundly as AdSense. Launching today, it’s the NeoEdge Game Channel, an ad-driven game widget from NeoEdge, the Mountain View startup we wrote about last November. Its Game Channel is a kind of videogame jukebox offering a selection of titles from several genres; when you click to play, NeoEdge’s advertising feed kicks in as the game loads.
Here’s the thing that excites me most: Pretty much any web owner (including bloggers) can install this plug-and-play widget on their site, and share advertising revenue with NeoEdge. (Hence the comparison to AdSense, only fun and interactive.) The social network PerfSpot is using the Channel, so you can go here to get a sense of what it’s like. For site owners, NeoEdge Marketing VP Ty Levine told me, “This is a way of keeping people on your site.” It also gives them a new revenue stream; a site with 200,000 unique users, Levine estimated, could earn $1,000 to 5,000 a month, depending on the owner’s sponsorship deal and revenue share. With some 400 titles in the NeoEdge library, the channel can be customized with selections that fit a site’s demographics and branding. As with AdSense, the Game Channel widget gives site owners far and wide an incentive to install it — and gives casual-game developers reason to keep creating content for it. Whether NeoEdge can capture and hold this market depends on its ability to deliver a diverse and compelling library of games — and to stay ahead of its competitors. With so many players rushing into the ad-driven casual game space, I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar services, purporting to offer better titles and/or revenue shares, launched by NeoEdge’s rivals. Let the casual game wars begin!
IP address: 17.149.160.45
Host name: itunes.com
Alias:
www.itunes.com
17.149.160.45 is from United States(US) in region North America TraceRoute to 17.149.160.45 [itunes.com] | Hop | (ms) | (ms) | (ms) |
| IP Address | Host name |
| 3 | 171 | 213 | 202 |
| 216.52.189.9 | border4.g3-2.colo4dallas-3.ext1.dal.pnap.net |
| 4 | 75 | 55 | 73 |
| 216.52.191.34 | core3.tge5-1-bbnet1.ext1.dal.pnap.net |
| 5 | 27 | 25 | 15 |
| 207.88.185.73 | 207.88.185.73.ptr.us.xo.net |
| 6 | 16 | 18 | 30 |
| 65.106.4.233 | 65.106.4.233.ptr.us.xo.net |
| 8 | 59 | 93 | 80 |
| 12.123.16.150 | tbr2.dlstx.ip.att.net |
| 9 | 54 | 71 | 83 |
| 12.122.18.229 | cr2.dlstx.ip.att.net |
| 10 | 109 | 99 | 105 |
| 12.122.28.178 | cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net |
| 11 | 101 | 70 | 63 |
| 12.122.31.134 | cr2.sffca.ip.att.net |
| 12 | 75 | 62 | 54 |
| 12.122.19.14 | tbr1.sffca.ip.att.net |
| 13 | 241 | 101 | 202 |
| 12.122.110.5 | - |
see previous post with Internap as bandwidth provider.
By Lev Grossman Correction Appended: May 5, 2008For a web company, there may be no better definition of total, unconditional victory than seeing your name become a verb. So far, that club includes Google and...nobody else. But if you had to predict the next tech brand to make the leap, Digg would be a good guess. Digg.com, which gets about 26 million visitors a month (up from 16 million this time last year), is a website where readers rank news stories and other online content according to how interesting they are. The most popular ones bubble to the top. It's the ultimate Web 2.0 take on the ultimate Web 1.0 medium: Digg not only puts readers and editors on equal footing but also puts the Wall Street Journal on equal footing with Dwight Schrute's blog on the TV show The Office. Jay Adelson, 37, is Digg's CEO. If somebody somewhere posts "The 11 Most Unintentionally Gay Rap Lyrics Ever," and you care about unintentionally gay rap lyrics, Adelson is the guy who makes sure you see that list. For someone who runs a human-powered media website, Adelson has a seriously crunchy background: he founded Equinix, a data-center company. So if the people choose the news, what exactly does Digg's CEO do? He manages the community, grows the business and curates the arcane algorithms that translate votes into ranking and placement. Prime placement on Digg has become so valuable, people will do anything to get it, including cheat. Adelson makes sure nothing thwarts the will of the people. Not even Dwight Schrute.
The dependence on the data center today is far deeper and wider than it was in 1999. How could it not be? The Internet is no longer just another source for information threatening print, radio and television. It is THE source for information, THE source for education, THE source for communicating with individuals or to populations, THE source for commerce and trade, THE source for entertainment and THE source for a recession proof economy. At the heart of it all is the data center. The data center provides the platform which is enabling a more equitable distribution of wealth across a global stage. Assuming this is all true, which I certainly believe it to be, there should be an epic flow of resources directed towards the buildout of the data center platform. Guess what...there isn't. The largest investments being made today are coming from Microsoft and Google. Give them credit. For all the grief the two of them take, they really "get it." And they've been rewarded financially for "getting it." But what about the innovation that is a result of the fresh ideas and new ways of doing things? Google and Microsoft no longer possess such innovative ways yet they own a large percentage of the platforms which enable such innovation. How many startups challenging MSFT, GOOG and AMZN are going to be comfortable hosting their secrets on the very companies they are trying to dethrone? I doubt too many. There is a huge misconception that a glut of data center space is on the horizon. The fact is that perception is ill conceived and those who believe it and make investment decisions are ill informed and quite possibly passing up a once in a lifetime investment opportunity. Don't misunderstand my point of view, yes, there has been a fair amount of new data center builds announced and in some cases started but if you go back and look at some of the recent ones they are rarely don't on spec...ie, the risk is minimized and the inventory rarely hits the retail supply. Take a dive into the SFBA market and examine Digital Realty Trust's two most recent builds in Santa Clara. Both were pseudo started on spec but were both completely sold out before being finished. In both cases they were leased to single occupants...ie, they got two new customer orders out of them. Not two new customers as both orders were singed by existing customers, but two new orders. Hardly a speculative build when you know your existing customers are about to hit a wall in terms of their available capacity and you can lead them down a golden path to expand in facilities operated by a vendor they already do business with....oh and which happen to be the only place on the West Coast where they can walk into such a situation. In the same market and right around the corner from DRTs two sold out locations there is Equinix, formerly the leader in speculative builds. Equinix is expanding its existing Santa Clara facility by around 40k sq ft and if it chose to could have the entire thing sold out today. Since their target customer isn't a 40k ft requirement and since they're in an enviable financial position, they can be choosy about who they sell the space to and find customers who will pay them top dollar for their product. This definitely won't be a startup as they are too cost sensitive and aren't worthy of extending large amounts of credit to in the form of inventory....Equinix has been there and done that and learned from the past. What about the rest of us? What about the major consolidation at both the state and federal government level which is far greater than anyone anticipates? What about the major efforts going on in enterprises across the US which all require data center facilities which are far more robust than what is currently available to them? If data center capacity is not available for these and many more types of requirements it is a serious threat to the growth of the economy and only positions the big guys more favorably than anyone should be comfortable with.
Dan Rayburn, Tuesday May 13, 2008 - 12:01 AM  Last December, at AT&T's analyst day, their presentation included a few slides about their content delivery build out and capacity planning in 2008 to handle web acceleration, software downloads and streaming based services.
Since December, AT&T has been busy working on the build out and expects to spend between $70-$80 million on infrastructure this year. By the end of 2008, AT&T is aiming to have 400Gbps of capacity online, for all their content delivery services, which would increase their capacity by 4x what they have now. When completed, their content delivery services will be delivered from 32 nodes in 7 countries and they will be Adobe Flash Certified by year's end and will be supporting live and on-demand delivery for all the major formats. Currently, some customers of AT&T's are still having their content delivered via Akamai, who AT&T has been re-selling and using as one of it's partners for some time. But moving forward, AT&T expects to deliver more content across its own network and rely less on partners for delivery. AT&T has been busy training their direct sales force and re-sellers to sell their CDN services and in the third quarter, AT&T expects to aggressively push into the market. While AT&T won't have some of the additional CDN services in the content eco-system like content management, transcoding, DRM etc... like most CDNs, they will probably partner with others in the industry who provide these services. Their content delivery services already support some additional functionality like authentication, pulling content from customers origin storage and reporting via their customer portal. While AT&T will not say how many customers they have for their CDN services today, or how much revenue they want to generate from CDN services in 2008, they have listed Forbes.com, AccuWeather.com and the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) as current customers. While many analysts who cover Akamai were worried when AT&T talked about their CDN plans during their analyst day, AT&T still has a lot of work to do in order to become a major player in the content delivery industry. They do have some advantages going for them, most notable of which is that they are not a startup and not relying on content delivery services alone for their revenue. They won't go out of business in 18 months when the VC money dries up, like some of the other CDNs will, and AT&T has an enormous marketing budget, re-seller channel and plenty of R&D resources. That's not to say those advantages will guarantee AT&T success, as we saw Qwest, MCI and other telcos in the market fail with these same advantages years ago. But with Level 3 now becoming a major player in the CDN market, AT&T making a bigger push, it's only a matter of time before the telcos once again try to dominate this market. Some will say that since AT&T, Level 3 and other telcos own the network, that gives them a competitive advantage over CDNs who's don't own the pipe. Others say that owning the pipe is too expensive, requires too much capex and does not allow the telco to deliver traffic from multiple "best of breed" networks. At this stage, the verdict is still out on who is right, but one thing is for sure. The telcos are entering the content delivery market and things are going to get very interesting in 2009 when outsourced CDN services for video alone become a billion dollar market in the U.S.
NEWS: 9 May 2008 12:39 GMT by Stuart Miles Nokia has confirmed to Pocket-lint that it expects to have a touchscreen S60-based mobile phone on sale by the end of the year.
Following the company's Design Studio behind the scenes event in London earlier in the month, Pocket-lint asked Nokia what its plans were with respect to touchscreen technology in the hope of garnering more information about the Nokia Tube, the company's iPhone and HTC Diamond killer.
The response: "We plan to bring the first touchscreen-based Nokia S60 products to market this year. It is an important trend but it's not going to be for everyone. We will continue to offer choice here so people can pick what works best for them".
What's interesting is the "not going to be for everyone" comment, which implies that the touchscreen feature might not be making it to the company's flagship Nseries range.
Nokia, who has had touchscreen products since 2003 with the Nokia 6180 and now more recently with the N810 web tablet has yet to embrace touchscreen technology in the same way as its competitors Samsung, LG, HTC and of course Apple.
That's not to say that the company is ruling out bringing touch to the masses. Nokia told us that it "will continue to use and evolve touchscreens as we look for ever simpler and more natural ways for people to interact with their devices".
Last month a Nokia exec revealed that the Finnish mobile phone company is still hard at work on an iPhone competitor.
Speaking at a developer event in California, Tom Libretto, vice president of Forum Nokia, also revealed the codename for the device - the "Tube".
"It's our first touch device", said Libretto, who could not confirm a timescale for the launch of the new handset at the time, but now seems, if the response from Nokia today tallies with the comments made by Libretto will be before the year is out.
We will keep you posted.
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Hank,
The new RTMFP protocol in Flash Player 10 provides an alternative to RTMP allowing customers to develop real-time communication applications with an improved user experience. Applications like chat and games are great examples of what you are likely to see make use of this technology.
Adobe has made no announcements regarding Content Delivery Networks and file sharing. Adobe highly values its CDN partners they are an integral component in delivering rich video experiences to Flash Player. This new protocol has been designed for communication solutions, not massive content delivery.
We chose UDP because it’s an efficient protocol for low-latency streaming video conversations, voice conversations or other similar solutions. UDP combined with the high-fidelity of SPEEX audio, will allow our customers to build great voice and audio solutions targeting Flash Player 10. To enable RTMFP and the UDP transport, authorization from a future server-based technology such as Adobe Flash Media Server will be required.
Flash Media Server will continue to be used to stream massive amounts of content to Flash Player because it can serve and protect video and reach the largest possible audience. New information within Flash player 10 allows a developer to monitor how a stream is arriving and make decisions if a different bit rate will improve the video experience for the end user.
We are very excited about this new communication technology, the protection around it and being able to improve the delivery experience for both communication and media delivery to Flash Player.
Justin Everett-Church
Sr. Product Manager, Adobe Flash Player