Enterprise content delivery network (eCDN) is a network that uses private infrastructure to distribute content inside the corporate firewall. It follows the concept of a traditional CDN but is designed for corporate networks to deliver high-quality content by utilizing the secure internal network.
While CDNs and eCDNs address similar problems, there are striking differences between the two. Unlike traditional CDN software, an eCDN is not meant for delivering content over long distances. eCDN assists in distributing content among employees on the same corporate network. It helps with intelligent video routing from a source nearest to the user. CDNs are more suited to deliver high-bandwidth media at a huge scale with a stable flow of data to a large number of viewers. This makes CDNs a right fit for organizations wanting to share content with the general population outside their corporate network.
CDN puts too much bandwidth burden on corporate internet connections despite optimizing bandwidth for internet traffic. However, an eCDN leverages proxy and cache servers located at the network edge to deliver content to the viewers over LAN, WAN, the cloud, or within a dedicated data center. To meet their content delivery requirements, organizations can choose different eCDN solutions, such as caching edge servers, multicast, or peer-to-peer (P2P) networking.
To qualify for inclusion in the Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) category, a product must:
Facilitate media delivery through a software-defined approach
Minimize latency to support live delivery of content within a corporate network for conducting internal events such as webcasts, digital town halls, and all-hands meetings
Provide a platform for conducting e-learning sessions for employees, clients, and partners
Provide scalable internet bandwidth to suit the needs of the organization
Reduce bandwidth for efficient delivery of live streams for hybrid events like exhibitions, conferences, and other business-critical operations
