iOS 7 update traffic

Mon Sep 23 13:10:05 UTC 2013

Glen Kent writes:
> One of the earlier posts seems to suggest that if iOS updates were
> cached on the ISPs CDN server then the traffic would have been
> manageable since everybody would only contact the local sever to get
> the image. Is this assumption correct?

Not necessarily.  I think most of the iOS 7 update traffic WAS in fact
delivered from CDN servers (in particular Akamai).  And many/most large
service providers already have Akamai servers in their networks.  But
they may not have enough spare capacity for such a sudden demand -
either in terms of CDN (Akamai) servers or in terms of capacity between
their CDN servers and their customers.

> Do most big service providers maintain their own content servers? Is
> this what we're heading to these days?

Depends on what you mean by "their own".  As I said, these days Akamai
has servers in many of the big networks.  Google and possibly others
(Limelight, ...?) might have that as well.  But I wouldn't call them
"their [the SPs'] own".

Some SPs are also built their own CDNs (Level 3) or are talking about
it.  But that model seems to be less popular with the content owners and
the other SPs.
-- 
Simon.