3 Trends in the Content Delivery Network Market

April 9, 2015 - PRLog -- Content delivery networks (CDNs) are a core component of the Internet and essential in the ever-growing demand for data. The basic principle of a CDN hasn't fundamentally changed in the past 15 years but the breath and depth of the services have changed dramatically. CDNs have innovated and grown as much as the Internet itself. Many players have emerged and disappeared over the years - often driven by trends of that time. Here are 3 trends currently ongoing.

The pay-as-you-go business model on the rise
In this highly competitive market, it's not just about features and technical advantage, but also about the business model. A growing number of CDNs are offering their services without long-term contracts. KeyCDN (https://www.keycdn.com) is one of the CDNs that has been based on pay-as-you-go since the launch. The two co-founders Sven Baumgartner and Jonas Krummenacher explain: "The pay-as-you-go business model is highly appreciated by our customers. It offers the flexibility to launch projects quickly and without the risk of an upfront investment". Even the larger players in the market recognize this demand and try to transform their pricing model. The CDN insider blog bizety.com recently postedabout Akamai going after startups as well and not just enterprises.

Everything in real time
Even though the complexity of services is constantly increasing, customers are expecting to have things in real time. The days are gone where changes were applied hours later.  The two co-founders of KeyCDN add: "We spent a substantial amount of effort into the development of making everything available in real time. Whether is purging assets, having real-time logs, configure a new zone or making new content available instantly. CDNs not offering real-time features are falling behind."
It's a viable selling proposition for CDNs to offer these features beside the regular selling criteria like uptime and speed.

Security as part of the core business
Security hasn't been that much of a revenue model for CDNs some years back. CDNs focused more on growth and fast content delivery. This has changed significantly as some CDN customers experienced the worst-case scenario where accounts have been compromised and websites went offline. Having a CDN and a separate solution to protect the customers is too expensive and too awkward. Customers expect solutions from one vendor. CDNs are in a good position to offer that.
Performance and security do not always go hand in hand. CDNs are challenged to offer not only best performance but also solid security. Too stringent security measures can be as bad as no security measures; DDOS protection blocking legitimate traffic does not help at all. Offering technologies such as SPDY, SSL or secure token access is more than just a nice add-on for privacy-concerned admins. It's essential for pretty much every website. With Google adding HTTPS as a ranking signal, it's has become even more important also for regular websites.

As the Internet advances at breathtaking pace, new trends lead to new opportunities and threats. Every CDN is challenged to stay innovative and agile. There won't be a fast Internet without CDNs, that's for sure.