A Practical Guide to Content Delivery Networks

Following in the tradition of its popular predecessor, A Practical Guide to Content Delivery Networks, Second Edition offers an accessible and organized approach to implementing networks capable of handling the increasing data requirements of today's always on mobile society. Describing how content delivery networks (CDN) function, it provides an understanding of Web architecture, as well as an overview of the TCP/IP protocol suite.

The book reports on the development of the technologies that have evolved over the past decade as distribution mechanisms for various types of Web content. Using a structural and visual approach, it provides step-by-step guidance through the process of setting up a scalable CDN.

• Supplies a clear understanding of the framework and individual layers of design, including caching and load balancing
• Describes the terminology, tactics, and potential problems when implementing a CDN
• Examines cost-effective ways to load balance web service layers
• Explains how application servers connect to databases and how systems will scale as volume increases
• Illustrates the impact of video on data storage and delivery, as well as the need for data compression
• Covers Flash and the emerging HTML5 standard for video

Highlighting the advantages and disadvantages associated with these types of networks, the book explains how to use the networks within the Internet operated by various ISPs as mechanisms for effectively delivering Web server based information. It emphasizes a best-of-breed approach to building your network to allow for an effective CDN to be built on practically any budget. To help you get started, this vendor-neutral reference explains how to code Web pages to optimize the delivery of various types of media. It also includes examples of successful approaches, from outsourcing to do it yourself.