Subject: RE: Taxonomy about CDNs

From: LOVRIC Ivan CNET/DMI/CAE <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 15:23:24 +0100

It is the goal of the taxonomy to describe the current practice related to
cache and replication. IMO, CDNs should already be considered as a current
practice, though they use proprietary protocols; so they are in the scope of
the taxonomy.
Nevertheless, I agree with you : this item did not exist in the first half
of 1999, and it should be mentionned only in a next version of the taxonomy,
if the WG wants to work on that topic.

-----Message d'origine-----
De: Gary Tomlinson [mailto:[email-masked]]
Date: mercredi 9 février 2000 21:51
À: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Objet: Re: Taxonomy about CDNs

I agree with Ian's assessment that CDN's are little out of scope for the
Taxonomy.  My reasoning here is, the ones's I'm familair with use a
combination of open protocols and some proprietary protocols and algorithms
to make them work.  The CDN's I've worked with gaurd thier "secret sauce"
proprietary value adds as they see these are core differentiators today.
So, I would find it hard to document them in taxonomy given the proprietary
constraints.

The whole concept of the taxonomy is a little difficult to capture
accurately at any point in time.  We've done a good job of capturing the
caching and replication space as it existed in the first half of 1999.  In
order to get the document published, we need to have a sunset on it.  This
of course leads to the need for WREC to define its future with respect to
taxonomies.  We may want to consider producing a new version over the next
year that emcompasses the last 12-18 months in this space, including CDN's
(with help from some of the CDN's).

Gary

>>> Ian Cooper <[email-masked]> 02/09/00 10:12AM >>>
On Tue, 8 Feb 2000 14:23:02 +0100 , LOVRIC Ivan CNET/DMI/CAE wrote:

>For the next IETF, I suggest to add CDN considerations to the taxonomy
>draft.
>
>Vendors like Akamai, Adero, Sandpiper use caches and/or mirrors to deliver
>content.
>At present, it is still difficult to see if CDN vendors use proprietary or
>standard protocols. Also, it is not easy to define exactly what are the
>boundaries of content delivery.
>That is why, IMO, CDNs are in the scope of the WREC WG, and therefore
>appropriate taxonomy should be defined.

Do you mean the taxonomy?  (Or am I just totally brain dead today?)

Section 5 of the taxonomy describes inter-replica communication (I
need to go back and see what wording it uses to check that we're
covered for things like "Master Origin Server"), and 3.1.1 describes
client-replica communication.

While I agree that the discussion of CDNs, and the protocols that are
used to distribute content among replicas, is useful, I'm not sure
that this belongs in the taxonomy itself.

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 13:47:28 -0800

The taxonomy defines 'surrogate origin server', which is what AFAIK most
CDNs operate as. It also defines several mechanisms for inter-replica
communication (i.e, between the master origin server and surrogates). Most
CDNs will be using some form of demand-driven or batch replication - IMHO
these definitions are general enough to catch current implementations.

-- 
Mark Nottingham, Senior Developer
Akamai Technologies (San Mateo, CA)