Exodus Communications Inc has built a ReadyCache Content Distribution Service across its network of 13 Internet Data Centers (IDCs). The service is built on Inktomi Corp’s Traffic Server and seems intended to take a chunk out of a market for high-speed networks that was virtually invented by Akamai Technologies Inc and Sandpiper Networks Inc. Exodus’s differentiators include log collation, which gives its customers the ability to track web site hits for advertising and promotions even when those hits are served off the network cache. Exodus is hosting some of the largest companies on the web, boasted president and CEO Ellen Hancock, and traffic to these sites is growing at an exponential rate. With such a substantial customer base, we need to provide the best tools.
Not to be outdone, rival Sandpiper is poised to announce a relationship with America Online Inc to deliver national-scale webcasts and other streaming media events to AOL’s 18 million members. Using its own Footprint technology, Sandpiper says it can improve delivery speed and reliability of broadcast quality streaming media within AOL. Other customers for the Footprint network include Uunet, GTE BBN, Sprint, Cable and Wireless, ATT/TCG, PSINet and Frontier/GlobalCenter. Meanwhile, Akamai boasts Apple, About.com, CNN, Looksmart and Yahoo, to name a few. It seems the battle for high-speed content delivery network dominance has only just begun. á
