Mirror Image marketing director Martin Hayward recently spoke to the WHIR
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The recently launched Edge Computing Framework from longtime content delivery solutions provider Mirror Image Internet (www.mirror-image.com) provides new options for businesses wishing to execute custom edge logic on Mirror Image’s content delivery network.
Web applications often contain session logic that, depending on the visitor, executes customized actions in real time, such as targeting an ad based on the user’s browsing history, or displaying content based on their location.
Mirror Image launched ECF In late September as a simple and effective way to create and deploy customized edge logic across the company’s global CDN. This logic is executed in real time “at the edge” of the network, closer to actual users. It essentially enables businesses to increase scalability, and shorten the response times of customized actions in real time.
Using a simple configuration process, the new edge computing services can be easily integrated with customers’ existing web applications without requiring any rewriting of code. Also, Mirror Image says that ECF has done away with complex scripting or proprietary tags, and doesn’t tie customers into a particular vendor’s platform or architectural environment.
As well, Mirror Image provides packaged solutions that execute in conjunction with ECF, including packaged solutions for online ad targeting, pixel tracking, geo-targeting, content rotation, mobile device re-direct, robot detection, and others.
In an email interview with the WHIR, Mirror Image marketing director Martin Hayward explains the configuration process of ECF, what makes this service faster, simpler, and less error-prone than other approaches, and, more generally, the advantages of having logic on “the edge.”
WHIR: Typically, if a company were to provide special instructions for the handling of online visitors, would this logic have to be carried out at a central server rather than at the edge?
Martin Hayward: Yes, and that is exactly the problem we are addressing with our Edge Computing Framework and our edge computing solutions. For example, let’s say an application uses logic to detect attributes of the visitor, such as cookie values or language settings, and then programmatically determines the response (such as selecting and serving contextually appropriate advertising or content, programmatically assembling JavaScript or playlist files, and so on). This type of “presentation logic” is typically hosted on the company’s (central) servers. But when the application needs to take advantage of a content delivery network for scalability, performance, and global presence, this logic has to happen on the CDN’s network or it impacts the response time of the application.
Our new products make it fast and straightforward for us to deploy our customers’ customized session-based logic on our network, allowing them to handle increasing traffic loads and deliver contextual content without having to scale up their internal infrastructure.
WHIR: What are the potential problems with other approaches to custom edge logic?
MH: In reality very few CDNs offer edge computing services. Out of a small group who do, we take a very unique approach.
For customers that don’t want to write or maintain code, our approach provides a simpler and faster way to deploy custom edge logic on our network. We configure and maintain each customer’s highly customized edge logic on our network using a configurable, framework-based approach. This means customers don’t need to write any code. Other CDNs require customers to provide the code, and require the code to be written as J2EE compliant .ear or .war files. So even if the presentation logic code exists, some customer would still need to rewrite it to adhere to the CDN’s architectural and vendor-specific app server environment. Our solutions integrate seamlessly with any type of application written in any web computing language, on any platform.
Also, many companies are not comfortable publishing their proprietary code to a CDN’s servers. With our framework-based approach, customers never publish their code to our network. This is attractive to some of our advertising and behavioral targeting related customers, where the competition is pretty fierce and fast-paced.
Finally, specifically for advertising related companies, unlike the other two CDNs that offer edge computing services, we are a pure-play CDN with no competing interests in the advertising space.
WHIR: How simple is it for Mirror Image customers to create new logical sequences? Does it require coding?
MH: It’s very simple. We basically sit with the customer and whiteboard the desired behavior; capture the requirements in a statement of work. We then deliver the functionality to the customer, who will acceptance test the behavior before it goes into production. If the customer wants changes, we make changes until they’re satisfied. The entire process of creating and deploying a new application usually takes just a few days from the time we first sit down with the customer. We try to make it very easy for the customer.
What makes it possible for us to deploy new applications so quickly and easily is our Edge Computing Framework. It’s a flexible framework that uses XML based rules and a rules execution engine to perform customized edge logic. As a result, creating specific edge logic to meet specific requirements is performed by simply configuring a set of rules, rather than by writing code.
The framework was developed by identifying the commonly occurring edge-specific criteria and actions in customers’ applications, and standardizing them in a flexible, extensible framework so that we don’t need to re-invent the wheel each time that new edge logic needs to be created and deployed on the network. New edge logic is created and deployed across our network through a simple configuration process that is faster, simpler, and less error prone than writing code.
The framework is able to customize web server log file entries both for content and format, and we can make the customized log files available to the customer as often as every 15 minutes. Log files can be customized to record the details of the visitor interaction, the results of the Edge Computing logic, cookie values, etc. The format of the log file data can be customized to minimize the amount of ETL processing the files must undergo before the data can be loaded into your data warehouse.
We also offer a set of pre-built, configurable solutions for geo-targeting, ad rotation, pixel tracking, mobile device re-direct, targeted pre- and post-roll advertising, robot detection, verification of billing and delivery for advertisers, and others. These solutions enable us to configure new applications for customers even faster.
Mirror Image Edge Computing capabilities can also work seamlessly with any existing solutions for storage, static object caching, streaming traffic, and so on, whether via a company’s own servers or with another CDN that they may already be using.
WHIR: Can a service provider (for instance, a web host) customize the edge logic for their customers?
MH: We allow customers to create sets of configuration files that we ingest as often as every five minutes. In this way, specific logic and parameter values can be configured by the customer and incorporated into the application logic on an ongoing basis.
In terms of creating and maintaining the customer’s applications, we do the work for our customers. Our customers appreciate being able to call us in the middle of the night and have someone answer the phone and solve their problem for them.
WHIR: It seems that the addition of custom edge logic to Mirror Image’s network was, in many ways, a logical progression for providing a more robust solution. Do you see Mirror Image leading the path that other CDNs are bound to follow with similar solutions? And what sets Mirror Image apart?
MH: Mirror Image is one of the original content delivery network providers in the marketplace, and we were the first vendor to bring the “centralized” CDN model to market, which has subsequently been adopted by many of CDN vendors who entered the market after us. Since 1997, Mirror Image has been providing services that enable companies to easily publish, manage, deliver and analyze their object delivery and streaming media activities, including integrated content distribution for content caching and file downloads, a complete Online Video Platform, and streaming solutions for delivering video (live and video on demand) to desktops, mobile devices and IPTV set-top boxes.
We will continue to innovate in these areas, and expect to see more capabilities and packaged solutions for edge computing in the coming months.
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