NTT Com Scores Big with Smart Content Delivery
The world's top track and field athletes were not the only ones tested at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan from August 25 to September 2. While nearly 2,000 people from 200 countries engaged in heated competition down on the field, a different sort of world-class player was being tested behind the scenes.
That player was NTT Communications (NTT Com), and the test was to provide seamless service for hundreds of journalists from around the world who needed to upload and publish video clips, live results and other content from the website of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
If awards were presented to such performers, NTT Com surely would have earned gold with its Smart Content Delivery Service (SCD), a global content-delivery service that uses NTT Com's global network of cache servers linked by a Tier 1 IP backbone.
The service enables customers to cache static and rich media content and thereby reduce the load on their web infrastructure, as well as cope with sporadic or peak periods of high demand for content. It overcomes slow website response and poor connectivity to web servers, cuts global Internet latencies and copes with unpredictable spikes in website access, particularly when there is a heavy load on origin servers dealing with rich content.
The service reduces content delivery cycles for origin servers, allowing them to be focused on back-end transaction processing. The result is improved website performance. Moreover, the distributed system created with NTT Com's cache servers helps to avoid DDoS attacks.
SCD's ability to protect and optimize a client's online presence has made it the preferred choice among corporations that cannot accept inadequate server capacity or systems prone to crashing in heavy traffic.
Since content is delivered via high-spec cache servers located within the company's Global IP Network, clients can build a scalable content-delivery platform without having to deploy and manage their own network and facilities, thus minimizing infrastructure costs.
End users enjoy enhanced downloading because content is provided to them from the nearest cache server. Moreover, SCD effectively handles a wide variety of content, such as HTML, images, downloaded content, streaming audio and video and encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) objects.
With so much to offer, it is not surprising that SCD has already wracked up a strong track record of success. Besides the IAAF, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) have joined a growing list of corporations that are taking advantage of SCD, backed by NTT Com's expertise in technical know-how, global infrastructure and project management.
"SCD first established a strong record among major corporate and government clients in Japan, but it has become a genuinely global business. Our SCD platform has quickly spread its wings," says Takanobu Maeda, Vice President of Global IP Network Sales.
Quality and Reliability: A Global Paradigm
The adoption of SCD by UEFA and FIFA are convincing testimony to NTT Com's special combination of world-class technologies, infrastructure and project management.
UEFA Media Technologies, Europe's premier soccer association, UEFA, turned to NTT Com after failing to obtain an acceptable solution from systems integrators, who were unable to cope with the overall demands of broadcasting live matches in 120 countries via the Internet. On top of ensuring high-quality video for its pay-per-view service, UEFA Media Technologies needs to manage the video streaming of its product, as well as control access throughout a vast array of countries and rights holders.
NTT Com was the one company able to provide UEFA Media Technologies with the solution it needed.
First of all, NTT Com - Asia's only Tier 1 carrier - is one of just three or four providers in the world with a genuinely global IP backbone. Comprising a 53G Asia-Oceania backbone, a 160G Japan-U.S. backbone and a 29G U.S.-Europe backbone, the company clearly has the necessary scale to go along with its network-management skills.
Secondly, SCD's video streaming service embedded in NTT Com's IP backbone offers the technical solution UEFA Media Technologies needs to guarantee not only the quality of its live Internet programming, but also its stability and reliability.
"When it comes to global content, sports represent a huge international market because language and other cultural differences do not present barriers. Clients from around the world have come to trust us in terms of both our service and our backbone. We have the global network required to provide true international service," adds Maeda.
NTT Com's backbone directly serves ISPs worldwide. Working with these companies, NTT Com can offer a range of managed and value-added network services, including secure communications via SSL technology. In addition, it can leverage its partnerships with ISPs to localize and manage services in individual markets around the world.
The bottom line for UEFA Media Technologies is that SCD enables it to guarantee top-quality, stutter-free video-to all 120 countries simultaneously, if necessary-as well as the opportunity to work with a partner-NTT Com-that offers a complete package of one-stop services.
"More than having just the network and related know-how ... more than being just a system integrator ... more than being a network management partner ... our service for clients such as UEFA Media Technologies clearly demonstrates our special abilities as a total-project partner," says Maeda.
Fast, Faultless Service ... Guaranteed
Of course, SDC is being adopted by an increasing array of customers for purposes that go far beyond sporting events. A key reason for this is the service's army of cache servers distributed across the global backbone, which provides a crucial buffer that enables websites to remain fast and responsive during traffic spikes.
This feature is particularly beneficial to online retailers who depend on the rapid processing of data to provide customers with satisfying shopping experiences, according to Eriko Toyota, Senior Manager of Global IP Network Sales.
Joshin, a nationwide retailer of consumer electronics, uses SCD to maintain a consistently stable website even when shoppers rush to the site during seasonal sales campaigns. The company has also found that SCD cuts its server CPU utilization rate in half.
SCD is also invaluable for strong brands that rely heavily on the quality of their web-based presence.
"Data is displayed very quickly, and that's critical for retailers who operate on a global basis. Competitive retailers need a reliable website that's highly responsive. For example, online shoppers in Japan who access a U.S.-based retail website may quickly lose interest if the pages load slowly. SDC's network of cache servers prevents this, meaning happier customers and ultimately more sales," Toyota explains.
Perhaps the security and reliability of SDC is best underscored by the Japan Metrological Agency, which uses the service to safeguard against the potentially serious consequences of its website crashing in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as typhoons and earthquakes (see Digest Vol. 6, No. 6), when countless people nationwide in Japan access the site for vital emergency information.