What Is the Edge in Content Delivery?
Learn more about edge delivery at the next Content Delivery Summit.
Read the complete transcript of this clip:
Dom Robinson: What is the edge?
Elsa Pine: Well, it's funny, because we always have this question asked and I always tell people, "The edge is where your customers are." So Comcast comes to us 10 years ago and says, "How quickly can you build 17 to 25 facilities? And we want them in all of these locations." We come back and tell them we can do it in less than six months for most of these locations, for half the price that they were going to build them for. So that's how we got started building the OTT platforms near their markets that they were serving the end customers. Then came Cox, then came Charter, then came the content that needs to get closer to the Comcast, closer to the Cox. So all of your gaming, all of your Netflix, all of your YouTube environments all set up their own infrastructure just to support the Comcast/Cox/Charter network customers in those regions. So, again, no transport like Peter was talking about in his opening keynote, as well as saving on the cost overall, lowering latency, and achieving high performance, which is what it's all about.
Dom Robinson: And, Lily, do you see the edge as the same?
Lily Yusupova: Yeah. The edge is definitely where the customer wants that content delivered, and there are different capabilities of the edge. So as an infrastructure supporter, we have to work very closely with our customers to understand what the edge is for them and help them deliver it, whether it's in North America or South America. So we support our customers globally, trying to understand where does that information need to sit and how do we deliver it on the infrastructure level. You still need that power, you still need to cool it. You still need to put that infrastructure down to have the actual edge occur. And that can come in different aspects. I know that Elsa, with EdgeConneX, you guys have different types of edge capabilities, whether it's micro or regional or it sits at different areas for your different clients. So yes, I agree. Edge is really where the customer drives that content.
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