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Voices of Video
Where's the CDN Market Heading? A Deep Dive with Mark de Jong
Ever wondered what's happening behind the scenes when you stream your favorite show? The content delivery network (CDN) industry powers much of our digital experiences yet has operated in siloed isolation for decades. In this eye-opening conversation, Mark de Jong, Chairman of the CDN Alliance and industry veteran with 25 years in online video, pulls back the curtain on this crucial but often invisible infrastructure.
Mark reveals how the CDN landscape is transforming into two distinct camps: "full-fledged" providers like Akamai that combine delivery with security and edge computing, and delivery-focused specialists like CDN77 that optimize for cost efficiency. It's a fascinating parallel to the energy industry – a commodity business where companies can still thrive through operational excellence despite selling essentially identical products.
The discussion goes beyond business models to explore groundbreaking initiatives addressing industry-wide challenges. TrafficRadar aims to prevent internet congestion by creating a secure framework for coordinating peak traffic events between content providers, CDNs, and ISPs. Another working group tackles the confusing world of streaming latency, where even vendors can't agree on basic terminology (is 30 seconds really "low latency"?). These efforts could transform how reliably content reaches consumers, especially during major live events.
We also examine the regulatory pressures facing the industry, particularly the "fair share" debate where ISPs seek to charge content providers for network traffic – a move that could ultimately increase costs for consumers. As Mark notes, most individual CDNs lack resources for effective lobbying, making industry representation increasingly important.
Whether you're a streaming professional, work with CDNs, or are simply curious about the infrastructure powering your digital entertainment, this episode offers valuable insights into the evolving world of content delivery. Check out the CDN Alliance at cdnalliance.org to learn more about their efforts to connect, support, and represent this crucial industry.
Stay tuned for more in-depth insights on video technology, trends, and practical applications. Subscribe to Voices of Video: Inside the Tech for exclusive, hands-on knowledge from the experts. For more resources, visit Voices of Video.
Voices of Video. Voices of Video. Voices of Video.
Mark de Jong:Voices of Video.
Mark Donnigan:Well, welcome to another super exciting episode of Voices of Video. So I am Mark Donegan and I am joined with another, Mark D. Welcome, Mark.
Mark de Jong:Hey, Mark, it's funny I have to say my own name.
Mark Donnigan:Actually, just as I said that I went oh wait, a second, the young, wait, mark D, that's right. No, it's super great to have you on Voices of Video and you know you and I have intersected at multiple points through the years. You know a lot of CDN Alliance events and just general industry events. You know Heineken Museum in Amsterdam at IBC. We can call ourselves veterans now we can.
Mark de Jong:I think we can call ourselves veterans now.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, we can call ourselves veterans, that's right. So no super excited to have you on and really talking about what in the heck is happening in the CDN space. But before we go there, why don't you introduce yourself? And then also CDN Alliance. I'm sure a lot of our listeners know who you are and know the Alliance, but maybe not all.
Mark de Jong:So tell us about yourself. Yes, so I'm Mark DeJong. I've been in the Alliance video for more than 20, I think almost 25 now. So basically, early stages, real video, windows Media that's basically where I started Up to now. So I've always been in the online video space, but I slowly transitioned from the real streaming world right, rtsp, rtp, et cetera to the CD streaming world right, rtsp, rtp, etc. To the cdm world.
Mark de Jong:Uh, once streaming went into cds, basically that's where I transitioned to the cnn space. So I'm really on the distribution side and um again, if you look at what I do with cnn, alliance makes a lot of sense. Um, again, primarily on the video side. I also did some security stuff, edge related stuff or other stuff, but online video has been my go-to. To be honest, I would not want to be in the other spaces because I love the space in general. So I have my own company, a boutique consulting firm, primarily in the CDN online video world. I also am chairman of the CDN Alliance that we're going to talk about a little bit more, and those are my two main things that I basically do.
Mark de Jong:Apart from that, I also do some little bit advising work for startups, especially in the online video space.
Mark Donnigan:Of course, especially in the video space. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. How many members do you have in the online video space? Of course, especially in the video space. Yeah, yeah, exactly how many members do you have in the Alliance?
Mark de Jong:So we're now around, I think close to 15, 20 in that area right now. Yeah, quite a number. Not big enough, of course, in what we do, but a decent amount of members yeah, geographically, where are they located? Us, us and europe. Basically, yeah, we don't do anything we don't do anything in asia yet, uh, but primarily europe and uh, europe and us, yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome.
Mark Donnigan:Well, maybe before we uh talk about what's happening, you know there's been some recent developments in the space. You know Egeo comes to mind, but before we jump in what is? Give an overview of the charter of the CDN Alliance. So you know what are you trying to achieve, what's the mission of the?
Mark de Jong:group. So the mission I mean if you look at it, you can find it on the website but the mission is we're an independent nonprofit organization with the goal to connect, support and represent the global CDN industry and CDN community. Now I know this is a very long mission statement, but it has everything that we do basically. So if you look at the beginning, we're independent nonprofit meaning independent. When we founded the CDN Alliance, we really were founded by a couple of different people, so three founders basically not affiliated to any of the CDNs or anything like that and you would think that might be strange. But if you go back and again, you basically still see it. Cdns have never worked together right. So if you go back, they were all side-offs. Everybody did their own stuff.
Mark de Jong:It was always based on open standards, but there was no collaboration whatsoever. So what we thought? Okay, if we would start one or two or three CDNs, the other ones will never join because they will always be like the ones that founded it. They will always have a preferred position in the alliance and that's what we want to avoid. So that's what we said Okay, we're going to start without any members and then add members later on. So that's basically what we said. We're going to start without any members and then add members later on. So that's basically what we said. We're completely 100 independent so that's that.
Mark de Jong:So that's one part. And then we want to make sure that we're independent of what we do, uh, so we're not affiliated to any player or any any other uh element. So being 100 completely independent, yeah. The second part is we're non-profit, meaning our goal is not to make money. Very simple, our goal is to help the industry and help the community. That's what we're aiming for. Uh, everything that the people do that are in the city and alliance, they basically do it for free. Um, so there are no, there's no uh intensive incentive here to make money or anything that we get in terms of money. We use that for the mission. So those are the two main basic elements that we do being independent and non-profit.
Mark de Jong:And who we do this for is what we say the global CDN industry and CDN community. Now we added the word global specifically, reason being also here again from a from a history standpoint, most cdn's from the history were us based, right, and again, if you look, that's right, the bigger ones, uh, that are still around, uh, they were, yes, based, so, but cdn is not a us based play. Cdn is everywhere, right, it's in every country, it's in every region. I can even say that if you look at the CDNs, for instance, that are in China, they're probably even bigger than the CDNs that are most global CDNs are out there, basically. So we want to make sure that everyone understands we're not here for US-based companies or something.
Mark de Jong:Really really look at it from a global standpoint and all the differences that are playing in that field as well. So that's why we added the word global as part of the mission statement as well, and as CDN industry and CDN community. If I look at CDN industry, if I ask you and I ask a couple of other people, can you define to me what the CDN industry is? I'm sure I get different answers because nobody has really defined the CDN industry. So we try to put this into different brackets, basically on how we see the CDN industry, and we see basically three different quadrants. We call them the cdl service providers. So that's basically anyone that markets and or sells cdn services. Right, this is the akuma this is cloudflare.
Mark de Jong:This is for radio, um, etc. Etc. Uh, it could also be the ones that do not have their own asn, so not that they do not have their own network, but still have a cdn. For instance, they use cloud infrastructures or standalone servers and still connect them being a cdn, but they don't really have an asn themselves.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, um, but also the channel partners, the resellers, uh, the multi-cdn companies that offer a service, with, with more, more cds under the hood, all of those we call the CDN service providers, right, anyone that markets and or sells CDN services. That's one group, which I think is pretty obvious in what you would think as part of the CDN Alliance. Sure, sure, what we also look at is what we call CDN technology providers, and CDN technology providers are the ones that deliver technology or key components to build CDNs, right. So we see this as hardware, software, data and services. Now, hardware, you can look at players like whatever a Supermicro, a Dell, a Cisco, juniper, anyone that delivers hardware pieces that you need. I mean, eventually, you need hardware in any way or form as part of a CDN right yeah.
Mark de Jong:Secondly, software right. So any software player this could be a Varnish, could be Ngenix, could be a Broadpeak, could be a TEM Anyone that delivers software to build CDN and mainstreaming, you name it Anyone that delivers software to build a CDNn. That's what we define as the software part. Then we look at data right. So certain data that you use for cdn, whether this is gip databases, for instance, the max mind or anyone else, um other other information used for security reasons, um, that you need to use to to mitigate attacks and all kinds of other stuff, all kinds of data stuff that you use. And the fourth piece is services. So any services, whether you use that are part of it, whether it's just monitoring services, anaca services or any other services that you use, and again, it could be a technology or key component, it doesn't really matter but all those elements that you use for CDN. And eventually, if you look at the cdn, it's nothing more than all kinds of bunch of things that you put together make sure that it all works.
Mark de Jong:It works together and that's basically what a cdn in the end is. So if you, if you deliver any of those elements as a company, we define you as a cdn technology provider amazing now of your current members.
Mark Donnigan:yeah, sorry, sorry for interrupting, but I'm curious. I think those are four categories, right of members, kind of what they're doing in the CDN ecosystem. Yeah, of your current 15 or 20 members I think that's what you said, right, You've got about 20 members. Is it kind of equally split across those four? Do you have more?
Mark de Jong:representation in one or not yet, not yet. So, especially the last category, we still are looking for more of those and I'll come back. Come back to that a little bit later. Uh, so, primarily they're in the first or the second one and the third and the fourth, which I'll tell you a little bit more about. Um, that's why we still lack members, basically, right, um, that's part of it. So the third, the third group is um cdn ecosystem players, and cdn ecosystem players are the ones, uh, that typically do not do the first two but are extremely important for the ecosystem to work.
Mark de Jong:So those are ISPs, carriers, data centers, internet exchanges, but also system integrators, and we call them the oil and the glue of the ecosystem. If you think them away, nothing works. Very simple, right? So that's that category. And then the fourth group is CDN industry players, and CDN industry players are the ones that either make use of CDN service providers so those are the companies that make, if you look at the media space, specifically the ones that use multiple CDNs to deliver the content, so typically those are their content players, content providers or make use of CDN technology providers to build their own CDN, right? So, again, a Netflix or Sky or whatever all kinds of you name it.
Mark de Jong:So that's the fourth category. So those are basically the users of the CDN service providers or the CDN technology providers. Yeah, that's what we define as CDN industry. In the end, which you already mentioned a little bit, it's more of an ecosystem than a real pure set industry as such. Now, if you look at all those four, they're all interconnected. They all work together with each other to make things happen. They all fight with each other to make things happen. They all fight with each other as well from time to time. They're co-dependent. Yeah, they're co-dependent.
Mark Donnigan:And co-opetition Like one minute they're arm in arm trying to win a deal. The next minute they're fighting.
Mark de Jong:Exactly. That's just the nature of the game in CDN.
Mark Donnigan:It's the nature of video, of the video ecosystem.
Mark de Jong:That too, that too. So that's basically the elements, the four different quadrants. That we say is what we define as CDN industry, or basically is the CDN ecosystem, and we want to make sure that those work together, whether it's in those specific brackets that we want, but also across, inter-exchanging with the different brackets that are happening Now. I also mentioned CDN community, and CDN community is basically, if you look at CDN industry, we look at it from a company for organizational perspective CDN community, as the name already basically says. This is about the people, right, and what we define as CDN community is anyone that either works at somebody that is in the CDN industry, right, so a company that is in the CDN industry with a company that is working in the CDN industry so they're working with someone in the CDN space or has an interest in those three. So if you classify as a person in one of those three hey, I work whatever in Akamai, or I work whatever, or I work my whole day, I'm working with CDNs in the first place, whatever, or I just have an interest in CDN, whatever reason then we define you as a CDN community. And while we also do CDN community next to the companies, it's because they often have the same challenges as the industry itself. That's why we said, hey, we can target just the companies, but actually we also need to target the people. So that's why we do both in this case.
Mark de Jong:So what we then specifically focus on on CDNs, of course we do media right, but we basically look at three main pillars of the CDN space. One is called delivery, the second part is called security and the third part is called edge right or compute or whatever what kind of name you want to put into it. Those are the three main drivers with basically most of the players out there. Uh, is that you, they do these three. Um, now, delivery we split up in a couple of different versions. So we'll look at static delivery, so this is just files, images, whatever static stuff. Dynamic delivery, so this is just files, images, whatever all static stuff. Dynamic delivery so this is regarding websites and stuff. And then media delivery, specifically in relation to primarily video also audio, but primarily video. So we look at more than just media delivery. We look from what we do a bit broader, although we have a focus here on the media side, but technically we look at what we do a bit broader, although we have a focus here on the media side, but technically we look at a broader scale.
Mark de Jong:Now what we actually do is connect, support and represent, and connect is basically you look at the quarter ends you want to make sure that everybody's connected as much as possible. If you look at the space before, right, everybody had their own circle of people that they knew in the industry, but there was no go-to place where you could actually connect with other companies and other organizations or even other people. That's what we wanted to be to make sure that we connect everybody in the space. So connecting is very important connecting between within the quadrants, across the quadrants, but also with other industries, right.
Mark de Jong:Again, if you look at the industries in general, yes, there are a lot of different industries and typically a lot of industries talk with each other to see, hey, what can we do? But again, the CDN industry didn't have a body or whatever to say, hey, we're the CDN industry, you should talk to us, right? So that's exactly what we wanted to do. But to want to connect with other ones, but also in terms of regulatory um elements that are more and more playing as well, to be that, uh, that organization that connect with them. So connect is a very big point. A second part of support, and support is basically two main elements. One is insights. Right, if you look at the city and space, there is very little that you can find that is really insightful. Yes, you can find all kinds of reports that says the market is going to grow for the next five years or whatever.
Mark Donnigan:30%, 40%, whatever the market is $35 billion $35 billion and growing to 100.
Mark de Jong:Whatever You've seen all the different reports, which are all bullish.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, bullish is a polite way to say they're wrong usually.
Mark de Jong:But there's very little insight in general in this space. So we want to provide more insights. One of the things we're launching relatively soon is, for instance, a CDN list, a list of all the different CDNs out there, not just the big 10, 15, 20 ones. All of them, including local ones, regional ones, special purpose ones, not the CDN ones, peer-to-peer ones, any flavor that you can think of that we see as a CDN will be listed on the particular list. So that list will be really, really relevant for everybody to know. Like, hey, what is actually there, right? So just to give you a little bit about insights.
Mark de Jong:So insights are very important. We want to do more of that. And secondly is we want to solve challenges that are out there, and this is what we do with working groups, and working groups basically have a focus on hey, we want to solve this particular challenge and we set up a working group for that and work on that Could be technical, could be business-minded, could be more regulatory-oriented, it doesn't really matter. We don't focus on pure technology, for instance. We focus on business and technology and regulatory stuff.
Mark Donnigan:And what is the output of those working groups? Is it ultimately some sort of a document? I would assume?
Mark de Jong:That depends, right. So it could be a document, it could be an event, it could be a standard that we're building or whatever. I mean we're not going to hold the standards I'm going to. That's not going to be us. Uh, we'll just propose something and then the standardization body should take it over, uh, but it could be a document, right? So we just want to create a document. That's, uh, one of the working groups we're working on right now. It could be, could be all kinds of things, but it's not necessarily, again, not necessarily only technology-minded per se.
Mark Donnigan:Understand and I think you know. I just want to make a comment, you know, and I know there's a few other groups out there that sort of have a similar mandate, not exclusively in the CDN space. You know some of them a little more broad, you know, to just streaming. You know some of them a little more broad, you know, to just streaming. You know video streaming, but I think it's there's a real place and it's super valuable because you know the standards bodies, the problem there is okay, great, you know, and there's a lot of work to ratify a standard. Get you know, get everybody to agree, get it out the door. So you know, and it's super important, right. So you know, I'm not saying that's not important, but but it's sort of like okay, you know, here it is Good luck, don't call us, you know, because that's not their mandate, right. And so you know, in the industry there's just case after case after case where part of the reason why video is so hard is, you know, on the surface is like well, why is this so hard? Everything's basically standards based.
Mark Donnigan:You know, we've all agreed meaning the industry on really only two or three codecs. You know, just picking. You know, h264, hevc and AV1 is kind of coming up, you know. So it's not like we've got, you know, 15 or 20 codecs to navigate. You know we're basically using, in most parts of the world, outside China anyway, hls or Dash, you know, to package the stream. You know, and you can just kind of go through and it's like, yeah, oh yeah, we're doing that, and yet everybody's implementation is different, everybody's device support requirements is different, and so it really makes it difficult, you know, both to build a service, maintain a service and then run a service.
Mark de Jong:But the difficulty if you look at CDN specifically, right, I mean if you look in general for the video space, yeah, there are a lot of standards, but if you look at the CDN space, there is very little Right, there are no initiatives. For instance, if you look at the common token authentication, for instance, cti Wave is working on this, there are a few initiatives, things that are getting into that direction, but everything else, every API is different from every CDN. There is no. Even if you want to do a courage, it's different when we think. If you look at log standards across CDNs, yes, they'll be 3C compliant, et cetera, but that's where it stops.
Mark Donnigan:That's where it stops, yeah.
Mark de Jong:All the other stuff they're doing. There is no, and there is really. I'm not going to choose CDN A over B over C, because just only their log files are a little bit better, or worse than it. Yeah, sure, and there are a lot of elements. And again, of course, a lot of people say yes, but we have to be careful for commoditization. If you make everything the same, it's going to be commoditized. Well, let's face it, it's already commoditized. So why not make our life a little bit more easy?
Mark Donnigan:Yeah Instead of yeah.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, and that's why I think a lot of people are still struggling with we, yeah, and that's why I think a lot of people are still struggling with like we really want to be different with everybody else, but for a lot of stuff you don't have to be different and there is no difference between CDNA or B.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really true. Well, you know, thank you for you know. Thank you for the introduction to the alliance.
Mark de Jong:There's one little element, because I said support, connect, and then the last one is represent. I'm just going to go first.
Mark Donnigan:That's right, we got to get to those.
Mark de Jong:So represent part is something. So representation is us being the voice and the face of the industry, which is getting more and more important. Voice and the face of the industry, which is getting more and more important. Um, there are some regulatory things happening, for instance, the fair share debate that is happening in the eu right now. Um, the fcc actually is looking at that as well. Uh, they're keeping a close eye on that. Um, and that means that basically, um isps are able to charge anyone that pushes traffic into the network by law. So it's basically a law they want to push for. Which means also all the CDNs, because eventually all the CDNs, or a lot of CDNs, apart from the private CDNs, all the public CDNs, push traffic into the ISPs as well.
Mark de Jong:Which means if they are able to charge more, then it's going to be more expensive or margins are going to shrink. What margins, right? Which means eventually the provider is going to pay more, which eventually means consumers are going to pay more. Is that what you want? We don't think it's beneficial for the ecosystem to have these kinds of things happening, so we're very careful. Sure, there needs to be. I call it honest, back and forth. But it's a very difficult play, but having it one-sided, in our opinion, is not right. So that's basically it Now.
Mark Donnigan:does that mean that you as an association, or even you personally, are going to become a little more outspoken, a little more proactive? Maybe, you know? I don't know if you're large enough or if you would take on a lobbying role, but is that what you're talking about? You're really going to wade into the conversation.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, the lobbying not yet. So we're too small to do real lobby work. Right, but the only CDNs that are currently involved in these kind of conversations on the regulatory level are Akamai, cloudflare, amazon and that's basically it. Anyone else and there are more CDNs like this right, anyone else doesn't have people in Brussels to really do any lobby work or anything like this. Right, anyone else doesn't have people in brussels to uh, to really uh do any lobby work or anything like this. That's where you think, okay, that's that's. That's a shame that everybody else basically is not doing anything in that space. Yeah, uh, and that that should. That should be different if you really want to make that work. And again, a lot of the regulatory uh people. Actually, if you look at the lawmakers and the European Commission, they don't have a clue about CBN.
Mark Donnigan:Oh, you can go listen, and I'm just recalling some of the comments and the ridiculous responses during the pandemic, when they were, and I think they eased up.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, like Netflix is destroying the internet. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that was pretty much what the lawmakers were saying Like what, netflix is not destroying the internet, you know, and it was crazy. I mean, obviously those of us in the industry, you know, shook our head. But the problem is, and this is what you know, I'm glad you're even touching on this because you know, I think, as engineers and you know, largely we're all engineers, I mean, even though I'm a, I'm a marketer, yeah, we're, yeah, we're techies, you know, and, and you know it's easy to sort of, you know. You know that's government, that's government stuff, that's. You know someone else sorts that out. You know I just build cool stuff, you know.
Mark Donnigan:Well, you know we all want to deliver better experiences, better quality, better. You know we want to really maximize the available bandwidth that we have, you know, to our consumer. And you know we want to deliver the best experiences, right, but if you have a government who has no clue, who's just a government regulator, whatever, who's standing in the middle, going, you cannot exceed, you know. Three megabits, you know, or two megabits, or something you know, whatever, whatever their arbitrary limitation is, you know, and you know, like, guess what I can't deliver the best experience, or I can do it, but only at HD. You know I'm not able to deliver 4k, you know, and that's just not. That's not good for anybody, you know.
Mark de Jong:No, so education is still it's still an important thing to happen in general.
Mark de Jong:And again it's a little bit. If you look at our industry. It's a little bit of a fall of general and again it's a little bit if you look at our industry. It's a little bit of a pull over industry because, again, it was always siloed. So how can, and everybody's talking different things, how can people actually notice? And a lot of the CDNs is basically the back. So a lot of people it's not an industry that is in the front right, it's not Apple right, or they're doing All kinds of fun work because they're working with devices and other stuff.
Mark de Jong:This is always happening in the back, it's not as visible as a lot of other industries.
Mark de Jong:Very interesting and of course, the last one on the regulatory, on the represent part, is important that people that we also defend the CDN industry in some way. For instance, if you look a couple of years back, a couple of CDNs went down in a couple of months in a row and there was a lot of bad talk about the CDN space, about the CDNs, but nobody really had a clue. Okay, how can you defend if the press is talking bad about the CDNs but nobody really had a clue? Okay, how can you defend if the press is talking bad about the CDN industry? There is no way to counter that. So we want to make sure that we are able to counter that. Or, even better, they come to it. Let's say there's another CDN down, come to us, we can tell you exactly what's going on, instead of you trying to figure out what's going on, Also making it a little bit easier for the industry itself, that's great, yeah, that's good.
Mark de Jong:So that's a little bit what we do as a CDM. It's quite a bit.
Mark Donnigan:It is quite a bit, and I didn't ask you how big your team is, but it sounds like it's not huge, so it sounds like you guys are busy. You've taken on a lot. Well, this is great. Thanks for sharing that, mark. So I'd like to talk next about what is happening in the space. You know, and you know we could go back and rehash, you know whether it's Egy or you know there's probably a couple other um cases that we could talk about, but I don't really want to go there, you know I. I would rather get your perspective on where are we going, where's the industry going? Where's the market going? What trends are happening? Um, yeah, you know, from your perspective. Tell us, tell us what you see.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, so the good thing I mean the good thing, I wouldn't look at the fact that NGO went to 11 and last year or the year before, actually, lumen stopped their CDM business business as well, right, so, yeah, you can really look at it. Okay, there's, there's some trend and going at least. Well, right, so that, yeah, you can you really look at it? Okay, there's, there's some trend and going at least. Um and uh, I mean, there are all kinds of different reasons why they all start or or quit the city of business. Um, so I'm not going to go in detail about that specifically. Uh, but it's hard to run a cdn in general, um and um. What I believe what's going to happen in the next couple of years is some of the CDNs made choices.
Mark de Jong:If you look at Akamai, I think Akamai is the real great example in this. Akamai started with delivery. When the early stages, what they started, their main goal, was to deliver and make sure that delivery is as fast as possible. Then they went into the more e-commerce and all kinds of other stuff related websites, etc. Then they went into security. The reason why they went into security was, of course, security became important, but they needed a second revenue capability next to delivery. Because they knew at some point delivery is going to be commoditized, it's going to be ending. We're not going to make enough money on it. So that's why they moved into the security space and they did it extremely well.
Mark de Jong:If you look at what Akamai is doing, still, security within Akamai is the biggest revenue driver of all. Their new baby, as everybody knows, is the edge compute capabilities. So basically they're repeating. They know over time security is going to be hard as well to maintain. We already see the last, I don't know three, four years right now that delivery is declining at Accom terms of revenues. I mean, they're still far the biggest on everything they do, but it is declining. Security is still growing, but not rapidly.
Mark de Jong:And Edge, of course, edge Compute is right now the one that has huge growth numbers in terms of revenue, comparable to the that particular vertical um. But they're they're doing that, they're doing they're focusing the edge part and you see a couple of other cdns, uh or cdn like uh companies doing the same. If you look at cloudflare, they're in that space as well. They, they both do all three. Basically, some other companies are moving in that direction. Agile technically was already moving in that direction as well. They did have an edge product, although they don't really push it.
Mark de Jong:And what I believe what's going to happen is CDNs are going to either focus on what I call the full-fledged capabilities, so they offer end delivery and security in Edge and they make sure that that works together very, very nicely. That means, if you look at the delivery part, they can ask a little bit more money on the delivery side because it's all integrated with security and integrated with Edge, computer etc. Etc. For certain use cases, if it's just blunt, pure delivery, whether this is media or just bit delivery for software updates or game updates or whatever there's got to be CDNs that focus on delivery alone or mostly delivery. They're not going to have the full pledge because what their focus is going to be is cost, cost, cost, yeah, yeah. So what they do is make sure that their infrastructure and how they run their infrastructure, how they utilize the infrastructure, is as efficient as possible at the lowest cost possible to make sure that they signal to make money on the delivery side, which eventually will take the revenue away from pure delivery.
Mark de Jong:That is done by the full-fledged ones, because they cannot maintain that. If you need to run an infrastructure for both end delivery and security and edge, that's a different type of infrastructure which is a little bit more costly. So you cannot compete with the pure delivery part. But they deliver capabilities that the pure deliver players cannot. So that's what I think is going to happen. There's going to be two types of CDNs the one that's focused on delivery and the ones that focus on offering the full-fledged capabilities integrated in all kinds of different ways, different use cases, and what will happen is customers, they will use a combination of those two. For certain use cases they will use that combination and for the other use cases, let's say pure delivery, they use the delivery players.
Mark Donnigan:Do you have any examples that you can give of CDNs that are either in one of those two buckets now?
Mark de Jong:Yes, you can see clearly are headed into one of those Clearly moving into full-fledged capability. Full-fledged, yeah, now let me ask you about Akamai?
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, because and I'm referencing the fact that you know what was it now six years ago or so, they pulled the plug on their media. You know basically their encoding and you know media processing service offering. I'm blanking out on. I think they kind of spun that out as a separate company. I actually don't recall, maybe you know, but that's not even the point, but it it felt like they basically then were saying OK, we're security and we're delivery Right. Then they acquired Linode and now they're very much building out. And you know we're sort of sitting a little bit in the middle of it at NetInt because you know we're very closely partnered, very excited about what Akamai is doing, building VPUs, you know, into the entire network. So we're very, very eager and excited for this development. But is there any insight there as to maybe, why that decision was made? And then, five or six years later, they came back and seemed to be building even much more intently, you know.
Mark de Jong:The reason being. In my opinion, the reason being, I mean, I don't know, know you should ask if you really want to know, but what I can assume on this, um again, they, they, they call themselves um distributed clouds or anything in those areas, right? So yeah they want to compete eventually, in my opinion, with an aws, um, etc. I agree in a different way, but in a different way. But the argument.
Mark Donnigan:But it's a good argument, though, right, you know like, okay, so many video platforms are running all their encoding services, their packaging, I mean a lot of their services, on AWS, but then they're, you know, ultimately taking the traffic off AWS. You know, ultimately taking the traffic off AWS, and you know, and it's being, you know, a lot of them, of course, are probably using Amazon CDN as well, you know CloudFront, but so it makes sense. It's a good argument, Absolutely, and I think there's a lot of people who are very open to it. You know we're certainly hearing that. You know there's a lot of services that are very excited about the prospect of building on Akamai. There's technical advantages and you know I'm not privy to all the pricing deals, but one could assume that there's probably some pricing advantage as well.
Mark de Jong:You know, it could be pricing, it could be opportunity in terms of type of applications. I mean the future stuff encoding, transcoding on the edge, that kind of stuff. I mean it's been old, I mean it's not something new or something. It just makes it a lot more accessible right now. And if you look at the trend which I think is an interesting one, also in relation to CDS in general, is the personalization of content to within users in every way or form.
Mark de Jong:Then edge comes more and more into play than you would have in a centralized story. There is centralized compute capability. So for some, I mean, if it's just pure VOD you're doing, yes, you probably want to have your workflow on a big cloud platform. Just have it there et cetera, yeah, exactly. But there are use cases where that could very well be interesting to actually do this on the edge instead of doing this.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, who else, who else is building a full-fledged, as you call it, full-fledged CDN?
Mark de Jong:Like I said, cloudflare is moving in that direction, gcore is moving in that direction, gcore is moving in that direction.
Mark Donnigan:That's a good point.
Mark de Jong:Bunny, in some degree not fully yet in my opinion, but they're moving a little bit in that direction. So there are a couple of different CDNs out there that offer these kind of capabilities, but there are also CDNs that are more focused on delivery right. A big example is and I think everybody knows is CDN 7-7. So they focus primarily on the deliveries domain and they've got some big, big deals in already already. Yeah, um, didn't they take some of the um, um sort of tier two lumen customers, or am I not?
Mark Donnigan:I mean, they got, they got quite some lumen customers, I think, because I know akamai bought like 100 accounts or whatever you know, like the biggest. I mean they paid money for it. But I think cd cdn 77 did a really good job, from what I heard anyway, or what I've been hearing, of going out there and just approaching these clients and winning them.
Mark de Jong:They really focus on price. Right now this is known where they can be very aggressive in terms of pricing, still deliver very good quality. But that again has to do with the fact of how they are building their CDN. Cdn is focused on delivery. That's what they do and they optimize this to the teeth to make sure that they get the best out of it.
Mark Donnigan:I'm sure, I'm sure when does Fastly fit in?
Mark de Jong:So Fastly from my perspective. I mean they're moving into the full-fledged, if you look at me, if you look at it. But a lot of their revenue, as far as I know correct me if I'm wrong a lot of it is still delivery-related. They have a lot of media customers, so a lot of it is still delivery. But they want to move more and more into the full-fledged. They're moving in that direction for sure.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, I think companies get to a certain size and I'm speaking of like revenue or revenue expectation, and they almost feel it's an inescapable pull to become full featured, to add, and on the surface it makes a lot of sense, right, like, well, wait a second. All of our customers I'm just using as one example, all of our customers are encoding video. They're all doing it on some other platform. Why don't we get them to encode on ours? And then all of our our customers are doing and they kind of look across the ecosystem.
Mark Donnigan:The problem is is that it's a very different thing. You know to build a network. I like how you're pointing out the optimization angle. You know like you have to design your system different and you there's certain things you're not able to optimize when you're, when you're offering this full platform, you know, whereas if you're only doing delivery, you can optimize differently. Now, everybody has their business approach, so it doesn't mean that Akamai, just as one example, isn't going to be massively successful in this approach. I mean, time will tell, I guess, but they likely will be. But you know, at the same time, cdn 77's over there you know doing extremely well, from what I hear just delivering.
Mark de Jong:Again, if you look at it, I always compare this with the energy market in general. So, energy is energy, right, yeah, so the product is not that different. Again, if you look at CDNs and you just do delivery, the product is not that different. Yeah, yes, there are some differences if it's in specific regions and stuff. But in general right.
Mark de Jong:it's basically the same, but there's still competition in the energy market. So even though it's a commoditized business because energy is commoditized as well it can be the exact same thing as CDN. It doesn't have to be bad message. It's just to make sure that you're focused on what you're doing.
Mark Donnigan:Actually, that's interesting. I'd never heard that sort of comparison, but it really does fit. It's like here you've got these massive oil companies. You have these massive energy companies that are, you know, whether using solar or however, they're generating their power. At the end of the day, they're generating power, and you know power. Talk about a standard. You know there's a standard for power and you know, and it's a commodity, because there's really very little differentiation, and yet these are massive. Yeah, there's not a lot of them out there, but these are massive, multi, multi, multi of total. You know capital, market capitalization and it's, you can't get more commoditized than power.
Mark Donnigan:So you know, in other words, your point is you can make a lot of money, you know, in the CDN space, which I think there's a certain segment of of the video. You working in space are like, oh, you can't make any money in CDN.
Mark de Jong:Like, well, you can it turns out, if you can, if you do it right.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, if you do it right, that's right. Yeah, okay. Well, this is amazing, mark. I'm really enjoying actually learning a lot about the conversation. You have a couple initiatives that you were telling me about and you know like let's talk about TechRadar.
Mark de Jong:TrafficRadar.
Mark Donnigan:TrafficRadar Exactly. Trafficradar, TrafficRadar exactly.
Mark de Jong:So a good example with this. We started with this one and a half year ago roughly. This was before the whole Netflix stuff with the boxing game and everybody's like did we just cripple the internet? This was before they already started to say this is happening. But Traffic Radar is one of our working groups and what Traffic Radar basically does is building a framework for information exchange across the ecosystem. Again, this goes back to, like I said, the ecosystem of the four quadrants.
Mark de Jong:If you look at peak events, right, this could be live events, but this could also be software updates, game update Don't forget these two, because those are extremely picky as well. Um, if there is a big event, uh, happening that has peak traffic and all the content providers, content providers know when it's going to happen because they know when they're going to launch it, when they're going to have the live sports event or when they're going to launch a game for download or anything like this, so they have the information. Now, typically, if it's big enough, interesting enough, the account providers discuss with the CDNs hey, we're going to have a big event, we're going to have whatever with the CDNs that they are working with and they inform them about when it's going to happen, et cetera. Now, they all do this in all kinds of different ways, right? Some call, some send a WhatsApp, some send a text message or an email or support ticket or all kinds of different ways, right, Every kind of provider does it differently and every CDN takes it differently.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, that's already an issue. So if they inform the CDNs because they don't always do, but if they do it, at least the CDNs have some information about what's going to happen, et cetera, et cetera, and they can make sure that they hey okay, we're going to monitor this and make sure that everything's going to be fine.
Mark Donnigan:Capacity Exactly Check capacity.
Mark de Jong:And what's also a problem is that typically the CDNs to some degree they sometimes do do not inform the ISPs. Some they do, some they do with the tier ones at least in some degree, to the tier one operators. Tier two, tier three, tier four, whatever no go. It's just too much work. How can you all inform them? It's impossible.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, exactly.
Mark de Jong:So they do the tier one because that's the biggest one, so they go for them and they might inform them. Again, communication from the CDN to the ISP is different in every way or form. So there is currently some of that kind of information happening across the ecosystem, but it's not organized if it's already happening, et cetera, et cetera, and we're still missing out on a lot of information in between because not every CDN is being informed, not every ISP is being informed, et cetera, et cetera. So what we wanted to do is make sure that we create a framework where all that information is exchanged between the different groups, so the content providers, the CDNs, and the ISPs, or the content providers directly to the ISPs, if they have their own CDN right, if you look at the networks, because they don't use CDNs To make sure that that information is shared in a standardized way across different ways of communication that are standardized as well. So we can make sure that information that is being submitted by a provider is coming in the same way, in the same way or form, towards the related CDNs that are using it, whatever way or form, and automatically is also sent to all the ISPs that are relevant right.
Mark de Jong:So if you do a live event in one specific country, you could easily say, okay, make sure that this information is shared with all the ISPs in this country. Whether it's tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four, it doesn't really matter All of them, they could just subscribe to that kind of information. Matter, all of them, they could just subscribe to that kind of information. The content provider still holds, holds, the um, the what information being shared with whom they just subscribe with the potential information that they're getting? Yeah, and that means that we can, uh, generalize everything on how information is flowing across the ecosystem. This means that ISPs know, hey, we're going to have a live event then, oh, but actually we have a maintenance window. We should better not do this right now.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, we better remove that maintenance window. Yeah, exactly, or?
Mark de Jong:hey, we see a live event, but we also see a game download being scheduled at the same time.
Mark Donnigan:Same time yeah.
Mark de Jong:This is going to cause issues. Yeah, so let's inform the content provider. On the gaming side, I mean, life is ending. You can move, but to move the update a few hours ahead, a few hours later, whatever, to make sure we don't crash, because that's in the benefit of everybody, right? Exactly, if the information is right from the customer provider, the customer of the ISP is the same customer as the account provider and the CDS are in between, trying to make sure that everything works on both sides. That's what we want to solve for traffic breakdown.
Mark Donnigan:Amazing. Is this some sort of like an XML format or something that you know gets exchanged?
Mark de Jong:So we want to eventually it's going to be a system. In the end. It's not going to be really an XML format, it's just going to be a system where the information is putting in.
Mark Donnigan:Is this information sensitive? I guess it would be because yes, exactly.
Mark de Jong:And that's why we want to make sure that the information is controlled by the kind of provider right? So they want to make sure. Hey, I'm going to share this amount of information. Yeah, it's not going to go out and you can select eventually and say, hey, okay, I'm going to be sending a little bit more information to the CDNs, but I'm going to send less information to the ISPs, for instance, yeah.
Mark Donnigan:Those are things that could happen.
Mark de Jong:So the account provider has control of what kind of information is being shared.
Mark Donnigan:And there's a reason.
Mark de Jong:So there's going to be a closed environment. And the reason for this is very simple. If any hacker or whatever knows, hey, we know at that particular time there's going to be an event for this and this event, oh, we're going to do a DDoS attack exactly at that particular point.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Mark de Jong:It should not happen, right. So that's why we want to make sure that everything is secure, making sure that the information is only shared between the right people Interesting.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, wow, well, that sounds like a really really good initiative, and so how far along are you in developing this?
Mark de Jong:So the framework, basically high level on the ideas is ready. We're in talks with all kinds of different kind of providers, including the very, very big ones CDNs and ISPs, to actually launch a proof of concept as part of this, to really see if we can make it work and if there's added value, to really make sure. Hey, yeah, this is really added value. This has helped with this and this and this, and once that proof of concept has been done correctly and we're satisfied with the results, then we're really going to finalize everything and making sure that we make this available basically to everyone yeah, what's the reception been like good, so far, everybody understands the problem, especially now, right?
Mark de Jong:I mean, we started one a year ago, before the whole.
Mark Donnigan:It's acute.
Mark de Jong:Yeah, exactly it's acute now, like yeah, not all the live events are going to go. Streaming, which I get for the streaming industry, is very nice, but that has some more challenges, maybe along the lines on peaks and all kinds of different things that are happening there. That's where traffic radar would really be interesting, so that's why we get more and more people looking at this. Interesting. Yeah, so Netflix, netflix, netflix has been doing was helping us on what we're doing.
Mark Donnigan:So that's why we get more and more people looking at this Interesting yeah.
Mark de Jong:So Netflix has been helping us in what we're doing, so that's good.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, I would assume. Yeah, so what else are you working on? I know we were discussing when we were setting up this interview and you and I were sort of bouncing some ideas back and forth Latency. It seems like you can't talk about video these days. This interview and you and I were sort of bouncing some ideas back and forth and you know, latency it seems like you can't talk about video these days. You can't talk about CDN. You can't talk about anything without the word latency coming up. Yeah, and you had commented that. You know you guys are doing some work around latency, so why don't you, you know, tell us more about that?
Mark de Jong:Yeah, so this is really media focused. Actually, this is Project.
Mark Donnigan:Group.
Mark de Jong:So if you look at low latency, right, everybody is talking about low latency, but nobody really has defined it what it actually is, exactly.
Mark de Jong:So we actually did a survey with 50 different vendors in this space. Again, on the distribution area specifically, again, we look at the distribution part. We did a survey figuring out, okay, we had a number of different questions and we asked all the vendors hey, could you just give feedback on what you think as a vendor? And what we found out is actually um, everybody has a different opinion, uh, about what is ultra low latency, what is low latency, what is, uh, uh, lately, what I am real-time streaming, um, sub-second latency, etc. Etc. Etc. Uh, everybody has different ideas about this. What kind of technologies are best?
Mark de Jong:Right, we're looking at WebRTC, we're looking at HESP, we're looking at all the other. Moc is, of course, is now coming. There are all kinds of different sockets, web sockets, all kinds of different versions of types of load-negative protocols and technology out there. Which one is the best? Everybody that is using a certain technology vendor said, yeah, our technology is the best. So the messaging from the vendors is all over the place, we found out. So imagine the people that are actually in the space, that need to understand what's going on and they get different messages from the vendors. How can they ever understand what low latency actually is, and a very simple example in this is we define. To ask the vendors can you define from how many seconds to milliseconds you think real-time streaming is auto, low latency is, and low latency is Now the good thing about this real-time streaming. Everybody said okay, basically almost everybody, not everybody. Almost everybody said real-time streaming is anything between zero and 500 milliseconds. That's what they call real-time.
Mark de Jong:Real-time okay, there was pretty much a consensus in this space about it. Yeah, then if you looked at ultra low latency of the charts, it's like it went from, I think, the. The highest ultra latency I saw was like 10 seconds or something. What for ultra low latency? For ultra low latency, yeah okay this is vendors.
Mark de Jong:This is not even asking people that are using or wanting to use low latency, whatever, um. And then, if you look at low latency in general, I think, yeah, I mean 30 seconds, I really, I really saw one. Yeah, 30 seconds, that's low latency. Yeah, sorry, but I don't see that as low latency.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, exactly.
Mark de Jong:But again, all over the place, even vendors do not have a consensus on this. How can we ever change this if the vendors are not looking at this? So what we said? And then you have all the different definitions that are out there, which are different, et cetera, all the different protocols that are out there. Nobody has a real clue. Okay, what are the protocols and how do we compare them actually? So those are all things in the low latency working group that we're trying to define and say, hey, we make an overview of everything that's out there. Yeah, we think this and this and this how it should be. And sure, there's going to be a lot of people saying I don't agree with this, I don't agree with this. Sure, have a discussion, tell us why not? Uh, so we can find some sort of consensus somewhere. Yeah, so we have one way of messaging in the market on what? Actually? Real-time streaming, instead of everybody saying their own thing, which is confusing. In our opinion, it's not helping the market and even the vendors for people to adopt low latency.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, I like what you're doing because it really does support your mission. You know, and the mission is to help the industry to you know, bring you know, and help often is, you know, to bring clarity where there's confusion, you know. Or, to you know, bring education where there's miseducation, or you know the real facts where there's misinformation. You know all these kinds of things. And in the area of latency, you're absolutely right. You know, obviously we're a vendor, we're out there.
Mark Donnigan:It's super interesting because, you know, we get asked all the time. You know, do you have a low latency solution? Do you have an ultra low latency? We're like we're A6. How about eight milliseconds? You know, because of course you know and it's a joke on our part because like, yeah, we're eight milliseconds, but you have to look at the end to end, you know. So it's like, do we have a low latency solution? A hundred percent. But now, if you put this in, you know a system that's architected, you know, one way or the other. There, you know, maybe it will. You know, maybe it'll get you there, maybe not. But the problem is, what do you mean by low latency? You know what? What is that so?
Mark de Jong:yeah, different perception, right. So if you look at somebody that is from the broadcasting world, right, and they look at low latency, it's completely different. Some people that is from the broadcasting world, right, and they look at low latency is completely different. Some people that are from the streaming world their perception is really different. But again, if you do, not come to one common sense somewhere and you write it down what it actually is. You're going to keep that confusion.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Well, that's good, well, it's a it sounds like a very, very good effort, and so will this basically result in a document that you're going to yeah, this is a white paper, there's going to be a white paper out of that.
Mark de Jong:It's a white paper and again, it's going to be version one. And then we ask feedback from a lot of people and then we say, hey, just come join the discussion so we can actually get this clear with everybody. So it's going to be eventually it's going to be a living document that's being updated over time. But yeah, that's basically what we do.
Mark Donnigan:And another working group is that's great. Well, good, well, mark, yeah, anything else to share?
Mark de Jong:Yeah, so one working group we're also doing which I think is really relevant for the industry in general, is a dictionary working group, which is also a big issue in the CDN space.
Mark Donnigan:You said dictionary.
Mark de Jong:A dictionary working group. It's a very boring one.
Mark Donnigan:No, but I see the value, so tell me more. No but.
Mark de Jong:I see the value, so tell me more. Yeah, so again, all the terms that are being used in the different CDNs, et cetera, are different. Actually, we talked to it was funny when LimeLight and EdgeCast came together they figured that out that all the terms that are used across the two different CDNs are completely different and that should be standardized. It's so stupid that we don't do this. So the dictionary working group is really working to see if we can work on standardization of the terms that are being used in CDN space, again to make life easier for everybody else. If you send in a support ticket, hey, I have an issue with this and they're like do you mean this? Do you mean this? No, if you have the terms right.
Mark Donnigan:There's no need. Yeah, it saved a cycle of an engineer having to ask the client a question, the customer a question, and then wait a couple days, get a response back. And now you're four days down the road and people are going. Why is it taking so long? Well, it's simple as terminologies.
Mark de Jong:And it's a board working group, because it's something that just needs to happen and you need to define it Well you definitely know where the geeks are and the academics in the association, in the alliance.
Mark Donnigan:They will be working in the dictionary working group, that's for sure. Yeah, interesting, cool, yeah, well, good, well, what is your focus for 2025?
Mark de Jong:And I like to ask this question Interesting it's a good question. So one of the things we're doing is working on more content content production- on our site.
Mark de Jong:So, again, there's very little content about the CDN space in general. So we're going to launch we already mentioned it on our website and on LinkedIn as well. We did a poll on webinars on one end and discussion forums, so we're real-time discussions on the other end. So that's basically on the topic. So the first one is the state of the industry. What we're going to discuss about. Everybody is then invited and have a discussion. What's actually the state of the industry? It's an open discussion. Everybody can join just to talk about the state of the industry. Um, and we'll have more of those, uh, virtual roundtables, you want to call it uh, where basically everybody can join. And then eventually we're also going to launch, uh, two webinars, again specifically focusing on cdn, uh, on cdn topics that are relevant. So those are things that we use are really creating more content that people need, because, again, also here, there's very little content you can find in the city, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.
Mark Donnigan:And is this, um, you know, would this be good educational type content for somebody new, maybe working at a, you know, at a cdn or that's?
Mark de Jong:okay, Again if you can stay to the industry and, in general, stay to the market. Of course that's more high level. Where is it going? Et cetera, et cetera. Yeah sure, but again, you get insights from all kinds of people that are in there and typically those are the ones that are interested in that space.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah.
Mark de Jong:So in that space. So listen to that. This is very, very interesting.
Mark Donnigan:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, that's good. Well, mark, thank you so much for sharing, you know, all of your collective insights and wisdom and just telling us about what the CDN Alliance is working on Really appreciate it and I would encourage all of our listeners to. You know, go look up Mark, look up, you know, the Alliance. If you fit somewhere in that ecosystem, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you. And obviously, you know, keep an eye on the space because it is shifting. It's shifting pretty rapidly and I'm definitely seeing everything you said resonates. So, yeah, it's actually good to get some validation, you know, because we're not directly in the ecosystem. But yet, you know, we sell, like especially into Akamai at this point and we actually have, I believe it's four, and there's like another three or four coming online, some names which I won't say, but who were referenced in the interview here who are going to be using our hardware. So it is really exciting. You know what's happening. So, yeah, well, great, well.
Mark Donnigan:Thank you for joining Voices of Video, mark Welcome. Well, great, well. Thank you for joining Voices of Video, mark Welcome. This episode of Voices of Video is brought to you by NetInt Technologies. If you are looking for cutting-edge video encoding solutions. Check out NetInt's products at netintcom.
