An overview of cloud based content delivery networks: Research dimensions and state-of-the-art

Content distribution networks (CDNs) using cloud resources such as storage and compute have started to emerge. Unlike traditional CDNs hosted on private data centers, cloud-based CDNs take advantage of the geographical availability and the pay-as-you-go model of cloud platforms. The Cloud-based CDNs (CCDNs) promote content-delivery-as-a-service cloud model. Though CDNs and CCDNs share similar functionalities, introduction of cloud impose additional challenges that have to be addressed for a successful CCDN deployment. Several papers have tried to address the issues and challenges around CDN with varying degree of success. However, to the best of our knowledge there is no clear articulation of issues and challenges problems within the context of cloud-based CDNs. Hence, this paper aims to identify the open challenges in cloud-based CDNs. In this regard, we present an overview of cloud-based CDN followed by a detailed discussion on open challenges and research dimensions. We present a state-of-the-art survey on current commercial and research/academic CCDNs. Finally, we present a comprehensive analysis of current CCDNs against the identified research dimensions.