Hello Toy,
> Its not clear in the article what the agreement between Sandpipier
> and Inktomi are, but it appears SandPiper is simply implementing
> Inktomi's Traffic Server (NOVL's ICS competition).
This is a business that I have been predicting on SI for quite some time now ... this is one of my favorite areas of research! This *is* the beginning of "content routing" and "object routing" ...
Sandpiper and Akamai are both well thought out strategies which capitalize on the inevitable ... a great place to be in! They both recognized the power of caching in the infrastructure and the implementation of hierarchically cached networks to route objects closer to the user.
Specifically to address your comment, the agreement between Inktomi and Sandpiper is a multi-million dollar investment! ;-)
sandpiper.com
Sandpiper is enjoying the investments of "America Online (AOL), Inktomi (INKT), Eagle New Media Investment LLC, an investment affiliate of the Times-Mirror Company, Hambrecht & Quist (through its affiliated fund, Access Technology Partners, L.P.), Bayview Investors, Ltd., an affiliate of BancBoston Robertson Stephens, Attractor Investment Management (lead investor), Brentwood Venture Capital, Media Technology Ventures and Mission Ventures."
All of these companies are ones that understand the value of caching ... and the tie to Inktomi is going to provide some interesting ties to break! I would guess that ICS might have a hard time breaking into Sandpiper as a solution ... I would expect that Inktomi products will be used.
> Based on the article, these Internet Content Load Distribution
> vendors are using either ICP or a proprietary version of ICP to
> efficiently distribute content data to its strategically placed
> Caches throughout the Internet. The added feature to their service
> is that they perform Traffic Analysis on the Internet and respond
> to any degrades. They might even have non-Internet links between
> their various servers to ensure high bandwidth between their web of
> Caching servers.
Yep ... they are creating the "object network" that exists *above* the packet network. This seems to be the first demonstration of where "class of service" is gaining ground ... and alternate communications routes will be created for well known protocols.
> The ICP is the open standard for inter-Caching Server data flow.
(A small technical detail - ICP is simply the protocol for caches to ask other caches if they have a particular object ... the caches will still tend to use HTTP to fetch the objects ...)
> NOVL's caching servers have it as do the others. The choice of
> product that SandPiper or their competitors use is their choice. It
> appears that Sandpiper has selected Inktomi.
;-) And now you know why ... ;-)
> The NDS play in this situation does not immediately stand out and a
> obvious opportunity to combat the SandPiper/Inkomi agreement, but
> with imagination and creativity one could find ways that a
> directory could get involved. For example, if Akamai implemented
> NDS with say Lucent Cajan swithes, they could potentially provide a
> value-add Quality-of-Service level of bandwidth via policy control
> from NDS to the Cajun switches throughout Akamai's web of caching
> engines. The policies would be centrally controlled via NDS. Akamai
> could provide stratified pricing solutions based on their
> customer's bandwidth needs or budget constraints.
The other area is related to the existing NDS integration in BorderManager ... which is the access control capabilities provided based on authenticated access. Maybe they want to provide only specific customers with accelerated access ... or they want to allow a parent to restrict access on their child ... and on and on. There are some very cool applications for directory and object routing ...
> PS - where the H?LL did these new Internet Caching companies come
> up with such stupid names - Inktomi??
Ouch ... I thought they were very good ones! if you pick the "common" ones you can't get the domain registered ...
From: inktomi.com
About the Inktomi Name
The company's name, pronounced "INK-tuh-me," is derived from a Lakota Indian legend about a trickster spider character. Inktomi is known for his ability to defeat larger adversaries through wit and cunning.
> Akamai??
From: akamai.com
Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is a Hawaiian word for intelligent and clever. Informally, it means "cool."
> Did they pick letters from a Scrabble Bag and were told to make a
> company name from their selection? I would love to play scrabble
> with them since I sure ended up on the losing side of their letter
> selections! hehehe
*YOU* go try and find an available domain name! ;-) ;-)
Scott C. Lemon |
