In the previous two articles of our blog series, we have looked at the market-leading CDNs Akamai and Cloudflare. However, there are some other providers that may be of interest to companies. In the following we would like to present a Give a brief overview of the CDNs from Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
Amazon AWS Cloudfront
Amazon Cloudfront is a CDN integrated with services from cloud provider AWS. These services include Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon Route 53, among others. Like other Amazon web services, Cloudfront is accessed through the Web Services API. To use the CDN an Amazon Web Services account is required. Amazon Cloudfront has high server density and a resilient Amazon backbone network, allowing end users to benefit from both high performance and good availability. To protect customers, built-in features such as the "AWS Shield Standard" and configurable options such as the "AWS Certificate Manager" (ACM) are available. The latter is used to create and manage SSL certificates, which enables better encryption of data. A special feature of the CND are the functions of the service, which can be individually programmed or adapted to the specific application requirements of the company. In terms of support, Amazon Cloudfront is not considered the best option, at least for smaller companies. Prices depend on the amount of data transferred and currently amount to $0.085 for 1 GB in Europe.
Google Cloud CDN
The Google Cloud CDN is one of over 90 IT services in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It offers worldwide server coverage and several useful features. For example, customers can be assigned a global IP address and generate SSL protocols at no additional cost. Since the CDN relies on Google's infrastructure, it allows for very high speed that surpasses the performance of most other CDN providers. To ensure the security of the customers, encryption is done via SSL/TLS. The setup of the Google Cloud CDN is relatively complicated and requires a high level of technical savvy. The CDN is particularly suitable for companies that already use Google as a cloud provider anyway. The cost of the service depends on the amount of data used per month and the respective region. In Europe, the first 10TB per month costs $0.08 per GB, with the price per GB decreasing for larger amounts of data and only $0.03 for 160TB and above.
Microsoft Azure CDN
Microsoft's CDN works with providers Akamai and Verizon to offer its customers a well-developed infrastructure. With the Microsoft Azure CDN customers can choose between the provider that most closely matches individual requirements and preferred regions. The Azure CDN is particularly suitable for companies that already use Microsoft software solutions, as there is good integration in this respect. The cooperation with the above-mentioned providers also ensures high speed and good server coverage. The operation and setup of the CDN are somewhat complicated, but customers can resort to textual and visual aids such as videos. Azure's pricing is based on the outbound traffic and the particular zone. As an example, the first 10 TB costs €0.0684 per GB for zone 1. For zone 5, on the other hand, it would already be €0.1333 per GB.
Here is an overview of the complete articles of the blog series "Content Delivery Networks - versatile networks with a high potential"
