A Storm Blows In From Amazon

Amazon (AMZN) formally launched its CDN last night, called “Cloud Front“.  It’s HTTP only, is limited to those storing data on Amazon S3, has no SLA and fewer bells and whistles than any CDN has ever had.  And it’s revolutionary.

Why?  Because it’s simple and inexpensive.  It takes the most basic CDN services and turns them into just another item on a webhosting control panel.    If I, a mere blogger with minimal needs, moved up a bit in the content world and had some content to stream, until today I wouldn’t even know where to go.  Now all I need is a credit card and a mouse.

Larger CDNs like Akamai, Limelight, and Level 3 aren’t at all threatened by this in the near term, especially those who focus on streaming and higher level services.  But it still changes the market for them, they will still need to keep an eye on what Amazon is going to commoditize next.  Or perhaps Amazon might take advantage of the difficult credit markets and buy its way into the streaming business?  Limelight (LLNW) perhaps?  Well, maybe that would be hard to integrate.

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Categories: Content Distribution · Datacenter