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Apple’s CDN reportedly goes live w/ 10x current capacity, deals in place w/ Comcast, others

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A report today from Streamingmedia.com points to evidence that Apple’s new Content Delivery Network is now live in at least the U.S. and Europe. The news follows a report in May that Apple was negotiating with ISPs in order to build out its own Content Delivery Network to move away from the third-party services it currently uses to distribute iTunes content, iCloud data, and software to customers. While the CDN isn’t yet delivering all of Apple’s content, the report notes OS X downloads are now coming from the new content delivery network and that Apple has made deals with Comcast and others to have 10x its current capacity:

In addition, Apple has interconnect deals in place with multiple ISPs, including Comcast and others, and has paid to get direct access to their networks. Doing trace routes on OS X downloads from multiple ISPs now shows them coming from directly from Apple’s CDN, as you can see with the example below.

– te-0-7-0-9-sur02.lowell.ma.boston.comcast.net (68.87.159.37)
– be-21-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net (68.85.106.45)
– he-1-12-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.253)
– he-4-15-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.197)
– he-0-11-0-1-pe04.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.82.222)
– as714-2-c.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (66.208.228.214)
– usqas1-vip-sx-003.aaplimg.com (17.253.0.223)

The report continues by claiming sources at ISPs say Apple has a “massive amount of capacity in place” with approximately 10x the amount of capacity it has currently.  While the OS X downloads shown above are proof Apple is already rolling out its own CDN, the company is reportedly continuing to use Akamai and Level 3′s CDN services for iTunes, iTunes Radio and App Store downloads. Streamingmedia, which has been tracking the development of Apple’s CDN over the last 12 months, notes that Apple has invested a lot in the project and achieved a surprisingly fast roll out:

It’s too early to know how much traffic will come over and when, but Apple’s already started using their own CDN much faster than I expected. The pace of their build out and amount of money they are spending on infrastructure is incredible. Based on my calculations, Apple has already put in place multiple terabits per second of capacity and by the end of this year, will have invested well more than $100M in their CDN build out..

While Apple already controls most aspects of the experience it delivers to end users, the roll out of its own CDN will allow it to increase its capacity and have more control over the infrastructure that delivers content to its users.

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Comments

  1. Steve Cho (@choisms) - 10 years ago

    Content DELIVERY Network…

  2. Alex O'Dor - 10 years ago

    On your second quote block, you repeat the statement,

    “Based on my calculations, Apple has already put in place multiple terabits per second of capacity and by the end of this year, will have invested well more than $100M in their CDN build out… Based on my calculations, Apple has already put in place multiple terabits per second of capacity and by the end of this year, will have invested well more than $100M in their CDN build out.”

    Might want to fix that up.

  3. Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on Taste of Apple and commented:
    This is really great news. I downloaded the Yosemite beta the other day and was shocked when it took 15 minutes versus the several hour wait for previous OS’s. I was wondering how it was possible, but certainly prefer it. I hope that it continues to be a faster option going forward as they roll it out.

  4. Lars Pallesen - 10 years ago

    I really have no knowledge about CDNs or “big iron” internet technology, but could Apple’s seemingly massive investment in their own CDN be linked to their plans for the rumored iTV? Just wondering.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.