CDN providers, which ones do you use?
 

On a smaller scale, lets say few TB per month to start with for promo movies, which provider would you recommend?

And how do you protect the movies from hotlinking?

Do you know SimpleCDN? They look very cheap... so what is the catch?

Or do you use a normal dedicated server instead of CDN?

And why is 50% of internet down tonight? :(

DNS has been quirky for me as well all night...

simplecdn is awesome. was using amazon s3 at 17 cents more per gig. simplecdn is cheaper, just as fast (or faster) and they have streaming servers.

Yes, it's starts at only 3.9 cents. Very cheap. I calculated at least 100% profit with the right movies...

But how do you protect your files from hotlinking elsewhere?

i cant find a network map fro http://www.simplecdn.com/ on their web site, for all we know it can be a single node hosting company calling them self cdn

Jay

not 100% sure. they have expiring headers which i think does the trick. u can email support [at] simplecdn.com and they'll get back to u fast. great support team.

Well, their documentation sucks. I can't even figure out CNAME, so I need instructions. lol. Protecting files on own server is easy, but I have no idea with this. It's new to me. :)

u could have tried the nav button that said "NETWORK STATUS"

http://www.simplecdn.com/noc

click the peering link at the bottom for network details.
even shows current throughput..

they give a free trial in the form of a $15 credit which covers a lot of bandwidth. no upfront credit card info needed. just sign up and you'll get an instant account to play with.

i have a couple sites that are still in their free $15. it goes a long way lol

I know. I already spent 2 x 5 credits on failed CNAME setup. Want to be sure before I try again, and add funds. And I don't want to pay for others hotlinking :pimp

lol ya i saw the cname setup but i havent tried it. good luck!

i love our CDN on www.oxeo.com :)

When it comes to CDN edge servers is what matters, cant find that list. whats the point of ASN numbers , i can get one too.

Jay

Hey Dirty Dane,

As far as protecting movies from hotlinking: The main feature that every CDN that I?ve seen uses to prevent hotlinking is some variation of token authentication or hash authentication. Different providers call it by different names but ultimately it?s still the same ? you generate a hash based on a shared secret that only the client and the CDN provider know, along with some other variables (such as an expiration date and the URL of the video itself). This way, the CDN knows when the link should no longer be valid, and any attempts to modify the link to get around it will fail.

We have 4 CDN's available (Level 3, Highwinds, EdgeCast, and Limelight) and can certainly find you a low cost solution for CDN delivery depending on exactly what you're delivering.

If SimpleCDN is charging for just setting up CNAME record, my guess is that they're getting you on any features you need or want to use. HW and Level3 for example, do not charge for CNAME record setups.

Hit me up with an email and I would be happy to go over a CDN offer for you and your business.

:thumbsup

Edgecast or Level3.

Thanks for your answer. I will look deeper into this protection stuff and providers, before doing anything. One step ahead :)

To me its quite simple: Invest in bandwidth - profit from same bandwidth.
With a price as low as $0.039/GB (start price at simplecdn), there really is potential with the right custom movies and presentation.

The "problem" I see when searching around, is that most providers do not keep it simple and assume everyone have hi-tech knowledge... and are redtube owners or something ("contact us" for prices etc.). I want to start on smaller scale without commitments - then expand if successfull. I think , most others want that too, and the hosts should also realize this and see the potential in it. Otherwise, without the tools and simple business, the file "sharing" providers will also continue making more money off infringements :(

You're right on when you say most providers don't keep it simple. And to be honest, that's why we have multiple CDN's available. Each has their own specialty, maybe its slow support, but big network and low cost, or maybe it's medium cost, but higher support level and easier to use.

Highwinds isn't the best necessarily to buy if you're pushing 100Mbps of traffic (because of cost) but they're fantastic for smaller comittments that need an easy system and great support (although you'll get great support thru us no matter what CDN you go with because our support is 24/7 and really know what they're doing to help you guys out).

So if you're looking for a small comittment, want to test it out free for a month, and are looking for an easy CDN to employ - Shoot me an email and lets get you setup on a free trial with Highwinds CDN. Takes about a day to get a CDN account provisioned with HW.

:thumbsup

Good question. I have no idea.

A client of ours integrated with SimpleCDN when they were first getting started. From what I remember, SimpleCDN offers an API which allows you to generate a unique link, which is time expiring and optionally restricted to IP address.

For example, on your end a link would be generated using their API that would expire after a certain amount of time has elapsed and would be restricted to the visitor IP address.