CDN.net Launches Customizable Content Delivery Network

After securing a valuable domain name last year, London-based OnApp has launched CDN.net.  The content delivery network (CDN) is a user customizable and usage-based solution, catering to budget and quality demands on a completely pay-per-use basis.

The company's vision is to use its distributed infrastructure and service provider relationships to allow the end user to provision a highly customized CDN service "on the fly,", which can be matched to individual needs and personalize in exactly the way the user wants. Taking on the established and large networks of CDN companies like Akamai and Limelight, CDN.net hopes to sell a federated capacity directly to end users.  It offers access to 30 premium PoPs, and a total of 160 locations across 40 countries.

The OnApp CDN.net service can be setup using its marketplace locations, as a CDN PoP in a company cloud, using  internal infrastructure to make CDN servers, or used to sell spare capacity on the CDN marketplace.  Its primary use-case examples are for web acceleration, application performance, and rich media content streaming. Like a pre-paid phone card, the CDN.net features pay-by-usage pricing, with no long-term contracts or commitments - recharging an account when necessary.

“Today’s rich content demands plague online businesses with bounce-back, high latency and downtime that are harmful to their customer retention, marketing, and SEO efforts," says James Fletcher, marketing director for CDN.net. "That’s why CDNs are now essential for all web property owners. However, buying CDN is generally an expensive, frustrating experience where customers pay for resources they don’t end up using, and get a pre-packaged service that doesn’t match their business."

At HostingCon 2012, Data Center Knowledge spoke with OnApp CMO Kosten Metreweli about OnApp's cloud products, including its cloud platform, its CDN marketplace and cloud storage offerings. Here's a video of the conversation: