Database Systems - Akamai Content Distribution Network - Case Study Example

Database Systems: Akamai Content Distribution Network April 18, Contents Overview of the Report 3 Introduction 4 1.1Purpose 4 1.2Background Info 4 Description 5 1.3High-level Description 5 1.4Detailed Description 6 1.5Cost 10 Applications 10 Benefits 11 Limitations 12 Users 12 Business strategies and objectives 13 Conclusion 16 References 17 Overview of the Report The report is split into various sections. It starts with a high level description of the Akamai Content Distribution Network. This is a quick overview of the general working and purpose of the system. This is followed by a low level description of the system, which includes technical aspects and a more detailed explanation of how the system works, including its input, processing and output activities. The costs associated with the system are also analyzed, including maintenance costs, client charges and profits. It also explains the types of users who use services provided by the system. Applications of this content distribution network are outlined, followed by a list of the benefits that are associated with use of this system, both on a performance perspective and on a business perspective. Every system has some flaws, and in light of this, the limitations of the system are also discussed. Finally, there is a discussion on the reasons for the success of the system, with an emphasis on the steps taken to improve the performance of the system and the business strategies that are employed to attract and maintain clients. Database Systems: Akamai Content Distribution System Introduction 1.1 Purpose This report aims to analyze the successful implementation of a database system by a major corporation. In this report, focus will be on the Akamai Content Distribution Network. It outlines how the system works, its uses, limitations, costs and profits. Finally, the business approaches used by the corporation responsible for the database system are discussed. 1.2 Background Info Akamai Technologies is a company located in Massachusetts, United States of America. It provides cloud services such as content delivery, web performance solutions, cloud security services and cloud networking connectivity. The company was founded in 1998 by Dr. Tom Leighton, Daniel Lewin, Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan (Akamai.com, 2015). Some of its clients include Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and Bing. Development of the company was motivated by a need to solve internet congestion problems which were common at the time. Creating a team of researchers, Dr. Leighton and Mr. Lewin managed to develop mathematical algorithms that could perform intelligent routing and replication of content over a large network of distributed servers. The founders obtained an MIT license for certain intellectual property and they started development in 1998. On April 1999, Akamai Technologies started offering commercial services (Akamai.com, 2015). Most of the company’s early employees were students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Description 1.3 High-level Description A database is a collection of data that is organized in a way that enables efficient access and management of the data. A network is an interconnection of two or more computers for the purpose of sharing resources, transferring files or facilitating communication (Winkelman, 2015). A content distribution network is a collection of servers located in separate geographical locations that allows for fast and efficient delivery of media files such as photos and videos. This is done by maintaining copies of media files at different points of presence (POPs) on a global network of Content Distribution Network (CDN) servers (Cincopa.com, 2015). When a user requests for a webpage on their browser, a regular website will serve up the entire contents from a single server. However, a website that uses the Akamai Content Distribution Network will serve the webpage differently. When a user requests a page, the user’s request is sent to an Akamai caching server that is nearest the geographical location of the user. The Akamai caching server then checks whether it has a stored copy of the requested page. If it determines that the copy exists, this cached copy is sent to the user. If the copy does not exist, the caching server requests a copy of the page, stores it in its cache, and sends a copy to the user (Upenn.edu, n.d). Akamai clients have an option of choosing which content can be pushed to the CDN servers and making certain content accessible only through the primary server (Research.microsoft.com, 2001). Retrieved from: https://clickmotive.wordpress.com/tag/website-performance/ 1.4 Detailed Description The Akamai CDN system is a distributed server system with more than 100,000 servers in more than 80 countries all over the world (Akamai.com, n.d). It supports numerous cloud services including media content delivery, cloud storage, deployment of cloud applications and media analytics. This system is comprised of multiple delivery networks, with each being tailored to handle specific types of content for example HTTP pages, video streaming and cloud applications. At a high level, the networks share a similar architecture; the networks only implement unique technologies at the low level design in order to better handle their own specific tasks (Nygren, Sitaraman & Sun, 2010). The CDN serving system starts from the moment a user types a Universal Resource Locator (URL) in their browser. The domain name of the URL is interpreted by the Akamai mapping system and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of an edge server nearest to the user is established (Nygren, Sitaraman & Sun, 2010). The mapping system contains a database having data regarding the network conditions, geographical location and status of edge servers. This data is used to determine the suitability of the edge server that will be selected for delivery of content to a particular user. For the edge server to make a response, it may request content from an origin server. This is because some content such as cookies, authentication and dynamic content should ideally be delivered from the origin server. Retrieved from: http://www.labnol.org/internet/setup-content-delivery-network-with-amazon-s3-cloudfront/5446/ The Akamai CDN uses three functions to determine the suitability of an edge server in the serving of content to a client. The nearest function determines the edge server that is geographically near the client machine by analyzing the network topology in question (Dilley et al., 2002). An edge server with a lower round-trip time is considered to be nearer the client than one with a higher time value. An edge server with lower packet loss is also considered to be nearer than one with high packet loss. The available function restricts a server from serving more clients if it is already servicing a load near its maximum load. The likely function is used to determine which of the available servers has the content being requested by a client. The Akamai CDN uses Query, a custom-developed distributed monitoring system, to manage all of its servers (Cohen, Repantis, McDermott, Smith & Wein, 2010). The CDN supports client businesses that run all day, every day. Network or server outages of even a tiny period of time can cause huge losses. Query was hence developed to provide real-time monitoring for all these distributed servers. Query detects problems and measures performance of each edge server, ensuring that the network is properly configured and all servers are functioning properly. The Akamai distributed server system is divided into clusters (Cohen, Repantis, McDermott, Smith & Wein, 2010). Each of the edge servers runs an instance of Query. Some subsets of the servers in a cluster are used as proxies to collect data from the entire cluster. The data from each cluster is then combined by the proxy and passed to Top-Level Aggregators (TLAs), which in turn combine the data into larger tables. Query provides a Structured Query Language (SQL) interface through which Akamai engineers can access data. This is especially useful in troubleshooting and generating performance statistics. User applications can also use this tool to provide statistics and logs to the client. Retrieved from: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/akamaiinahyperconnectedworld-131124143803-phpapp01/95/akamai-in-a-hyperconnected-world-23-638.jpg?cb=1385325559 Retrieved from: http://www.akamai.com/dl/technical_publications/lisa_2010.pdf 1.5 Cost Akamai delivers between fifteen and thirty percent of the total traffic on the web (Akamai.com, n.d). This represents a very large amount of traffic, and for this reason, Akamai is considered to be a very large corporation. The company made a profit of about two billion dollars in the year 2014. The operational costs associated with the CDN are not documented, but it could well be over several billions of dollars. The pricing of its CDN services is not publicly available; the company prefers to chart custom pricing rules for its clients. Applications Akamai Content Delivery Network provides HTTP-oriented services to deliver content of specific types (Akamai.com, n.d). This includes streaming of static and live videos. The CDN is also optimized to allow simultaneous downloads of large files by a very large number of users. It also provides services that help in preparation and protection of Video on Demand (VoD) media files in readiness for delivery to different kinds of devices that require different formats. For live content, the CDN absorbs the feed, which is of a high bitrate and enables support for Digital Video Recorder (DVR) playback. Akamai CDN also provides an Adaptive Media Player (AMP) technology that enables fulfillment of app-based requirements for video streaming (Akamai.com, n.d). This technology uses algorithms that optimize videos streamed at a dynamic bitrate and transcodes them into a format suitable for different types of devices. It provides useful analytics related to media content, including Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE). It also provides a closed caption feature that allows clients to incorporate additional services without having to worry about the technicalities involved. In addition to this, Akamai AMP provides a way of inserting adverts into the streamed media content. The Akamai CDN provides a cloud storage solution to clients (Akamai.com, n.d). This ensures that media upload speeds are maximized and enables accelerated media content preparation. The CDN has a vast array of distributed servers located in different locations all over the world. This ensures provision of storage services which are reliable, redundant and available at all times. Because of the vast storage capabilities and scalability of these servers, clients can be assured of scalability if future storage demands grow. Benefits The Akamai CDN is composed of a large number of distributed servers located in numerous geographical locations all over the world. Visitors to websites that use Akamai CDN services will be served content from an edge server that is located near their geographical location. This speeds up performance of these websites since the content to be delivered is brought nearer to the user. Due to the way these servers are distributed, most of the geographical regions in the world are covered by the service. The CDN offers cloud storage to businesses and consumers. The storage capacity associated with this service is virtually unlimited, owing to the vast combined storage capability of all the edge servers. Akamai cloud storage services are subject to the advantages of typical cloud services, including reliability, availability and redundancy. One major benefit of this service is that it supports streaming and downloading of files by very large multitudes of users, remaining operational past loads which would have overwhelmed the origin server. AMP services provided by the Akamai CDN ensure that website visitors get access to media content irrespective of the kind of device they may be using. AMP transcodes media files to ensure that they are playable on all kinds of devices, both for regular video streaming and live video streaming. Advanced algorithms guarantee delivery of content that meets excellent quality standards to the user. It also enables clients to embed adverts in their media files. In addition to this, it provides useful analytics about media services to the client so that they can judge the performance and quality of the services that are being offered. Limitations One of the challenges facing Akamai CDN is the control and monitoring of its numerous edge servers (Dilley et al., 2002). There exists automated tools which monitor the performance of all the edge serves, but these tools are not perfect. Sometimes, errors occur and they cannot be detected by these tools, and it is up to Akamai engineers to troubleshoot and identify problems in the network. Another challenge is in keeping the bandwidth used in monitoring at a minimum, since the combined bandwidth used by TLA’s, cluster proxies and individual nodes to transfer performance data is very large. Another major challenge is in how the system responds to failures. The system may be provided corrupted or invalid information; it must react in a graceful way when these cases occur (Dilley et al., 2002). This requires use of advanced and complicated algorithms that anticipate and take care of these situations. The servers have to react quickly to varying network conditions, and this is harder to perform as server loads increase. Sometimes, loads from different clients may have a negative impact on each other, and the system has to find a way of sandboxing processes unique to each user from the rest. Since the system is composed of numerous servers with large storage capacities, it is hard to confirm the integrity of the data in all the server databases. Users Akamai CDN is used by thousands of clients all over the world, ranging from small startups and individual consumers to mammoth enterprises (Akamai.com, n.d). These clients request for various services such as delivery of webpages, video streaming, Video on Demand services, provision of download locations and deployment of business applications. Notable clients include Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, The New York Post, Red Hat, United States Army, Adobe, Viacom and Best Buy. Business strategies and objectives Akamai CDN system employs a number of business strategies that have enabled it to become successful. First, it has edge servers located in most of the countries in the world. It has also partnered with most Internet Service Providers all around the world to configure their services, resulting in a shorter hop between clients and Akamai edge servers. This provides it with an advantage over other CDN services such as Amazon CloudFront, since its global reach is unprecedented. Clients who use Akamai services can be assured that most of the world will benefit from use of the CDN in their businesses. Akamai uses advanced algorithms to ensure that performance of its edge servers is optimal and that clients get the best possible service. From the successful growth of the company, it is apparent that these algorithms actually work as advertised. Akamai offers a pricing strategy which requires that clients only pay for the services in the proportion that they actually use (Akamai.com, n.d). Furthermore, clients can request for more resources and services as the demand increases. The company does not publicize its CDN service costs to the public, instead preferring to negotiate custom plans with its clients. Because of this pricing strategy, each client can reach a satisfying agreement with the company on the negotiating table. A large number of employees at Akamai are students and faculty members from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Edelman, n.d). These are brilliant mathematicians and computer scientists who provide an invaluable workforce to the company. They collaborate with the rest of the employees at Akamai to create better and efficient cloud technologies. In addition to this, Akamai possesses an employee workforce composed of individuals with excellent research and intellectual abilities. Akamai keeps track of the carbon emissions produced by its vast network of servers (Peill-Moelter, 2012). This enables the company to track what amount of energy it uses and the possible negative effects on the environment, and how to mitigate them. It also assists the company to come up with ways on how it can manage running costs associated with the energy consumption of the system. By using analysis derived from energy consumption figures, the company is able to come up with more efficient ways to configure its servers. This growth in efficiency is observed in the graph below: Retrieved from: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/03/01/how-tracking-its-carbon-footprint-helped-akamai-save-cash Conclusion Akamai is a very large and successful corporation. It began life as a humble startup at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has grown into a multi-billion dollar company. A network of edge servers makes up the Akamai CDN system. These servers are located in several geographical regions all over the world. The CDN system is based on advanced mathematical formulas and algorithms that create an efficient model of delivering data to users. In addition to this, Akamai provides cloud storage, security, networking, analytical and web performance solutions. Akamai’s success is attributed to adoption of competent business practices. It has a global reach through a network of edge servers located in most geographical locations of the world. It also has custom pricing plans for its clients, giving room for negotiations and provision of tailored products for consumers. Akamai is an environmentally conscious corporation that keeps track of its contribution to the state of the environment. From traffic figures, it can be said that Akamai has succeeded in taking over the internet. References Akamai.com,. Akamai Technologies. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.akamai.com/html/about/company_history.html Akamai.com,. Akamai Technologies. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.akamai.com/html/resources/content-distribution-network.html Akamai.com,. Akamai Technologies. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.akamai.com/html/about/facts_figures.html Akamai.com,. Akamai Technologies. Retrieved 19 April 2015, from http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/media-delivery-solutions.html Cincopa.com,. (2015). What is a CDN (content delivery network)? Why Do I Need a CDN | Cincopa. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.cincopa.com/media-platform/services/what-is-a-cdn Cohen, J., Repantis, T., McDermott, S., Smith, S., & Wein, J. (2010). Keeping Track of 70,000+ Servers: The Akamai Query System. In Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA) (pp. 1-15). San Jose, California: USENIX. Retrieved from http://www.akamai.com/dl/technical_publications/lisa_2010.pdf Dilley, J., Maggs, B., Parikh, J., Prokop, H., Sitaraman, R., & Weihl, B. (2002). Globally distributed content delivery. IEEE Internet Comput., 6(5), 50-58. doi:10.1109/mic.2002.1036038 Edelman, A. Akamai Technologies: A Mathematical Success Story. SIAM News, 32(10), 1-3. MIT Technology Review,. Akamai - MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr50/akamai/ Nygren, E., Sitaraman, R., & Sun, J. (2010). The Akamai network. SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev., 44(3), 2. doi:10.1145/1842733.1842736 Peill-Moelter, N. (2012). How tracking its carbon footprint saved Akamai cash. GreenBiz. Retrieved 19 April 2015, from http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/03/01/how-tracking-its-carbon-footprint-helped-akamai-save-cash Research.microsoft.com,. (2001). How Akamai Works. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/ratul/akamai.html Upenn.edu,. Caching Service on www.upenn.edu. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://www.upenn.edu/computing/web/central-host/caching/ Winkelman, R. (2015). Chapter 1: What is a Network?. Fcit.usf.edu. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from http://fcit.usf.edu/network/chap1/chap1.htm Read More