Major CDN Providers To Announce P2P Service By Year’s End
Love it or hate it, the topic of P2P delivery has been coming on strong over the last twelve months. While our industry has been talking about P2P for many years, this year we’ve seen many signs of actual adoption on the way. As I outlined in a post back in April entitled "P2P Delivery Networks Can’t Survive On Their Own" the biggest thing stopping P2P from becoming a mainstream product is companies thinking of it as a replacement for CDN, as opposed to a compliment. That is about to change.
By the end of this year many of the major CDNs will announce a hybrid CDN/P2P service for customers who want to leverage P2P in situations where it makes sense. No one solution of any kind works for all customers and for all types of content, so it’s only natural that CDNs are going to be forced into offering the widest selection of delivery options possible. While these P2P services may not be commercially available until early next year, expect to see three or four of the major CDNs announce a service sometime in the fourth quarter. I won’t say what companies are launching, when, and with what P2P technology or platform as I am not at liberty to share the details I’ve received from multiple people, but the service is on it’s way sooner than people may think.
For content owners and CDN providers, this is a good thing. What content owner really wants to deal with how their content is delivery and the protocol or technology used? They want it delivered to the right user, at the right time, to the right device and for the right price with performance, which is defined in many ways. And for CDN vendors, why not give customers more options and potentially different levels of performance and price?
This will be a positive step in the right direction for all involved as with choice comes more adoption and with more adoption comes more growth.
Other P2P Posts
– Confusion Reigns Supreme When It Comes To P2P Delivery Networks
– Do P2P Networks Really Support Streaming?
– P2P Delivery Networks Can’t Survive On Their Own