EdgeCast Networks has quietly emerged as a major competitor in the content delivery network (CDN) market, signing up big ISPs as partners and giving industry heavyweights Akamai and Limelight a run for their money. Well now, EdgeCast is working to make its customers’ page loading times faster than ever, by integrating Google’s PageSpeed front-end optimization technology into its CDN.
PageSpeed works by taking a look at static web pages and implementing a number of different optimizations to ensure the best possible performance when they’re sent over the web. According to Edgecast president James Segil, that includes stuff like HTML optimization, autocompressing media that was sent uncompressed, combining JavaScripts, and domain sharding, all of which is used to speed up load times in the browser.
Usually all this happens at the origin server, but EdgeCast has integrated its PageSpeed technology at the edge. For its customers, that means optimizations will happen dynamically on the server closest to the end user. It also means improvements in performance: EdgeCast claims that its architecture has shown a 77 percent improvement in site performance compared to delivery from the customer origin without the service.
EdgeCast took a look at a number of front-end optimization technologies, but ended up going with Google’s PageSpeed due to its openness and extensibility. And it’s the first CDN to do so, integrating PageSpeed with its own Edge Optimizer application delivery network (ADN). With its CDN for delivery, ADN for dynamic site acceleration, and now PageSpeed static website acceleration, Segil says EdgeCast offers the “full monty” of services to ensure every element of a website is delivered as quickly as possible.
While EdgeCast is making PageSpeed optimization available directly to its customers, it’ll also be available through a number of CDN partners and resellers. That means the software will be available through distributors such as Motorola Mobility and Dell, as well as the operators that they serve. Reselling and CDN federation are a big part of EdgeCast’s business, so we can expect a number of other ISPs to take advantage of the offering.
EdgeCast is based in Santa Monica, Calif., and has about 200 employees. It carries approximately 5 percent of global Internet traffic for more than 4,000 customers worldwide. The company has raised $20 million since being founded in 2007, with investors that include Menlo Ventures, Steamboat Ventures, Mark Amin, and Jon Feltheimer.