Transparent Caching and Content Economics

The continued growth of video content creates challenges for network service providers, as noted today by Dan Rayburn at the Business of Online Video blog.While content delivery networks (CDNs) can ease some of the strain on networks, the CDNs are really working to address challenges faced by the content provider, rather than the network providers. What's the answer to making the economics manageable? For many providers, the answer is transparent content caching.

"Unlike traditional CDNs, which only store content based on business agreements, transparent caching can make intelligent decisions about which content can and should be cached locally to optimize the network," Rayburn writes. "By deploying intelligent caches strategically throughout their networks, operators can cache and deliver popular content close to subscribers, thus reduce the amount of transit traffic across their networks. Hot content would be delivered very close to the edge, and content of decreasing popularity could be cached further back in the network."

Read more at The Business of Online Video.