Published:
17-Dec-09
Following Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) 3.5.2 deployment in 14 Amazon edge server farms worldwide,
the Amazon CloudFront content delivery service (CDN) now supports streaming of media files stored in Amazon S3 cloud storage. Flash streaming media will be priced at the same rate as HTTP delivery. Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers will have access to such features as adaptive bitrate streaming and encryption: RTNPE and RTMPTE encrypted versions of Adobe's proprietary RTMP protocol are supported, alongside with RMTP and HTTP tunnelled RTMPT versions. Amazon expects to start supporting live streaming in 2010.
Our take...
The CDN services market is undergoing rapid commoditization, However, servicing the players who are not passing large data volumes and thus are not in a position to negotiate steep CDN discounts remains a higher-margin segment of the market. It is precisely this yet uncrowded niche that Amazon has traditionally targeted with its AWS, and is now extending to CDN/storage services for small-scale online video distribution.
The addition of media streaming capabilities is a significant enhancement of the AWS suite. It brings the range of content serving value chain components offered closer to the solutions suite of major CDN players such as Akamai or Limelight. However, in terms of scale, the Amazon CDN is still a long way away from the size and reach of Akamai and Limelight networks and is thus not suitable to serve the needs of large-volume content distribution.
