A Cloud-Oriented Content Delivery Network Paradigm: Modeling and Assessment

Cloud-oriented content delivery networks (CCDNs) constitute a promising alternative to traditional content delivery networks. Exploiting the advantages and principles of the cloud, such as the pay as you go business model and geographical dispersion of resources, CCDN can provide a viable and cost-effective solution for realizing content delivery networks and services. In this paper, a hierarchical framework is proposed and evaluated toward an efficient and scalable solution of content distribution over a multiprovider networked cloud environment, where inter and intra cloud communication resources are simultaneously considered along with traditional cloud computing resources. To efficiently deal with the CCDN deployment problem in this emerging and challenging computing paradigm, the problem is decomposed to graph partitioning and replica placement problems while appropriate cost models are introduced/adapted. Novel approaches on the replica placement problem within the cloud are proposed while the limitations of the physical substrate are taken into consideration. The performance of the proposed hierarchical CCDN framework is assessed via modeling and simulation, while appropriate metrics are defined/adopted associated with and reflecting the interests of the different identified involved key players.