Amazon announced the launch of its new CloudFront content delivery network (CDN) service. CloudFront, which is built on top of the company's S3 cloud storage platform, boosts download speeds by caching content on servers nodes on the edges of the network.Amazon first revealed plans for the service in September. It launched the beta and disclosed details of the pricing structure. CloudFront's pricing model is tied to consumption and decreases with higher volume, a factor that could make it a more competitive choice for smaller companies. The price also varies depending on the edge location because Amazon charges less for pushing bits to places where its operating costs are lower.
For edge locations in the United States, customers can expect to pay $0.170 per GB for the first 10TB per month. Customers pushing over 150TB will pay $0.090 per GB. Amazon is operating edge locations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Because the service is built on top of S3, developers who are already leveraging Amazon's cloud storage technology will have very little trouble adopting CloudFront. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels claims that some of its S3 customers got CloudFront fully configured for their content within 10 to 15 minutes.
CloudFront's tight S3 integration and pay-for-what-you-use pricing may prove attractive, but the major incumbent players in the CDN arena aren't going to sit still and let Amazon eat their lunch. Limelight is slashing its pricing and Akamai is aggressively leveraging its patents on CDN technology to keep itself at the forefront.
Although Amazon's entry into the growing CDN market isn't likely to be a major disruptor, it will boost competition and could also make S3 look more appealing to some prospective Amazon customers.
