Apple's $100M Investment Marks a Shift Away From Third-Party CDNs

自2013年以来, 苹果的 been hard at work building out its own CDN, and now those efforts are paying off. In late spring, 苹果的 CDN went live in the U.S. 和欧洲, and the company is now delivering some of its own content directly to consumers. 除了, Apple has interconnect deals in place with multiple ISPs, 包括康卡斯特, and has paid to get direct access to those networks. While Apple hasn’t made any official announcements about its CDN, an analysis of trace routes on OS X downloads showed them coming directly from an Apple CDN.

I have spoken to ISP representatives who say Apple has put a massive amount of 能力 in place, perhaps up to 10 times the 能力 it is using today, all ready to go when the company releases Yosemite and iOS 8 this fall. Apple is still using other CDN services for iTunes (Akamai), 无线电(三级), 应用程序下载, 但是随着时间的推移, much of that traffic will be brought over to 苹果的 CDN. It’s too early to know how much traffic will come over and when, but Apple has begun using its own CDN much faster than I expected. Apple is spending an incredible amount of money on infrastructure and completing its build out at an incredible pace. 根据我的计算, Apple has already put multiple terabits per second of 能力 in place and by the end of this year will have invested well more than $100 million in its CDN build out.

While Apple will probably never completely move away from third-party CDNs the way Netflix did, 随着时间的推移，中国对它们的依赖将会减少, 就像我们在微软看到的那样, YouTube, 和其他人. Level 3 will be able to make up for lost CDN business, as it is one of the vendors that Apple is buying wavelengths, IP传输, 纤维, 以及其他基础设施服务. 从收入的角度来看, Level 3 benefits more from Apple building out its own CDN and buying network services than it would from Apple using Level 3’s commercial CDN platform. Akamai will see the most negative impact over time, since almost 10% of its revenue comes from Apple, 它也卖不出苹果的波长, 交通, 主机代管, 或其他网络相关产品. 在YouTube上, 微软, and Netflix all took their CDN delivery to in-house platforms, it was about 18 months before they moved enough traffic away from third-party CDNs to impact their businesses. Apple has now been working on its CDN build out for about 15 months and is quickly scaling its network. So while I’m not predicting doom and gloom for Akamai overnight, 毫无疑问, it will have a negative impact on their business at some point.

It is also important to point out that decisions on who (Apple/Akamai/Level 3) delivers what (updates, 流媒体, 应用程序, 无线电)发给谁(ISP客户), 不同的设备, 等.)都在苹果的控制之下. Content providers manage these choices according to their business rules and usually don’t inform the ISP when something changes. If adequate server and network 能力 exists, switching from one CDN provider to another (such as moving iTunes downloads from Akamai to 苹果的 CDN) or changing encode rates should not impact performance, so we should not expect consumers to even notice the change. What CDN to use -- internal versus external -- depends on cost, 合同, 能力, 技术准备就绪, 除其他因素外. 苹果等公司, 之前是Netflix, 根据设备选择不同的CDN, 通过ISP, 通过服务——下载, 流媒体, 等.

Apple already controls the hardware, the OS (iOS/OS X), and the iTunes/App store platforms. Right now it controls the entire customer experience, except for the way content is delivered to its devices, and it is quickly working to change that. 然而，苹果并不拥有最后一英里, paying to connect directly to it (in some places) and delivering content from its own servers allows it much more control over the user experience, 尤其是对于基于云的服务. 随着时间的推移, this is something that will make the experience and performance for consumers even better -- and 苹果的 only just getting started.

This article appears in the October 2014 issue of 流媒体杂志 as "Complete Control: 苹果的 CDN Now Live."