Exodus bringing Web content closer

ReadyCache Content Distribution Service aimed at graphic-intensive Web sites.

By Denise Pappalardo
Network World, 09/13/99

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. - Exodus Communications is rolling out a new caching service this week that will let customers distribute their content more strategically over the Web.

A Web-hosting and collocation service provider based in Santa Clara, Exodus is installing Inktomi Traffic Servers in all Exodus data centers to support the ReadyCache Content Distribution Service around the world. Today, Exodus has 13 data centers and plans on bringing nine more online by year-end.

The ReadyCache Service lets Exodus hosting and collocation customers have parts or all of their Web content cached and stored on servers at all Exodus data centers. Distributing the content in this manner will give Web surfers from around the world faster access because the servers they are hitting will physically be closer than if they were being hosted on a single server.

The service is targeted at business users in the publishing, entertainment and software industries that have graphic-intensive Web sites or sites from which large files are often downloaded.

Ishophere.com (pronounced "I shop here") started using the ReadyCache Content Distribution Service last month. "The closer we can bring our site to consumers, the faster the site will perform for those users," says Crom Carmichael, chief operating officer at the online shopping portal in Nashville.

Ishophere.com essentially guides online shoppers to other sites on the Internet by introducing merchandise in various categories such as woman's apparel, automotive, books or photography. But the site doesn't just provide a bunch of hyperlinks. If online shoppers click on Barnes & Noble, Dell, J.Crew or J.C. Penney, they get an introduction to the site with a list of additional choices. Carmichael says ishophere. com's main Web server, which is stored in Exodus' Herndon, Va., data center, stores a lot of data from the company's many portal partners. The ability to cache that information at all 13 of Exodus' data centers was one of the reasons the company chose Exodus, he says.

Exodus can bring its collocation and Web-hosting customers' content closer to Web surfers because the company has integrated its caching servers with its Domain Name System servers. This gives the network the information it needs to determine the best method of delivering cached content to individual Web surfers, says B.V. Jagadeesh, chief technology officer.

Exodus is also engineering its network so that when a ReadyCache Service customer's main server is delivering cached content to any of the Inktomi servers, that main server will always be connecting over the Exodus network. This means a customer with its main server in New York is guaranteed that when a Web surfer tries to access the customer's Web site, the cached content will be delivered over the Exodus network, whether that surfer is located in London or Santa Clara. Content Distribution Service customers will be paying a premium for that guarantee.

ReadyCache Service customers will also soon be able to more directly reach users overseas. Exodus signed a $105 million deal with Global Crossing recently that will expand the company's network into Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Tokyo, says Ellen Hancock, CEO at Exodus.

The network deal gives Exodus indefeasible rights of usage (IRU) access to more than 5G bit/sec worth of bandwidth, which will fuel the company's international data center deployment, Hancock says. Today, Exodus has only one international data center in London.

Exodus is not the first service provider to roll out caching technology. In fact, Digex and @Home Networks have had Inktomi's technology in their networks for several months. And other service providers such as Sandpiper Networks and Sky Cache, both using different technology, have based their entire businesses on offering users distributed content over the Internet.

Jagadeesh says the Exodus approach differs in that the Content Distribution Service is an extension of the company's existing collocation and managed hosting and security services. This eliminates the need for a customer to contract with multiple vendors to get the same services that Exodus offers.

The service is available now for $750 per megabit, per month in the U.S. Exodus charges $1,500 per megabit, per month for traffic outside the U.S.

Exodus has established three U.S. regions - east, middle and west - as well as a region in Europe. Customers may set up cache servers in any or all of these areas. Customers will pay a one-time installation fee of $5,000, which only includes one region; additional regions carry a one-time $2,500 fee.