Making the Business Case

We have all come to expect that the data we are trying to access will be available almost instantaneously, whether it be from the hard drive on our PC or from a website on the other side of the world. When we try to access a website and we have to wait for more than a few seconds, for example, many of us tend to give up or try another site, because we assume that the first site is either no longer available or is temporarily down.

This behavior has implications for enterprises that provide e-commerce, e-learning, or any other information that is needed by customers, employees, investors, or any other stakeholder: The data and services requested must be available as fast as possible, regardless of the location of the user relative to the data. CN aids in this quest.

CN is an intelligent network solution. In other words, it adds intelligence to the network so that the network devices are aware of the content that users are accessing. CN implements a content delivery network (CDN) that provides efficient distribution of content across the network, selection of the best site for a user to obtain the content, and load balancing of content stored on multiple devices.

Some example applications that could benefit from CN services are e-learning, video on demand (VoD), and IP television (IP/TV). IP/TV uses one-way streaming live video, while VoD transfers prerecorded video files to users upon request.

CN provides many benefits, including the following:

• Increased loyalty If data is available when customers request it, they might not be as enticed to go elsewhere to get it.

• Maximizing internal productivity Employees can access data when they need it, allowing them to be more productive and to service customers more quickly.

• Reduced bandwidth use CN places data closer to users, thus reducing the WAN bandwidth they require.

• Enabling new applications As the data bottleneck is reduced, new applications become possible, including e-learning, video communication, e-commerce, customer self-help, and so forth.

• Scalability As demand grows in specific areas, data can be distributed where required, without impacting existing users.