Apple's Content Delivery Network Now Live, Making Faster OS X/iOS Downloads Possible

MacRumors · Jul 31, 2014

Apple's content delivery network is now live in the US and Europe, reports analyst Dan Rayburn of Frost & Sullivan (Via ArsTechnica). The CDN may deliver multiple terabits of data per second, allowing Apple to more efficiently to distribute software updates and other content to its customers.

Apple's CDN apparently went live recently as current trace routes provided by Rayburn show that OS X downloads are piped directly from Apple to internet service providers, such as Comcast. Apple is paying for this direct route in order to avoid congestion and other issues during times of high volume traffic, such as when a new version of OS X is released. Other providers who possibly have negotiated these interconnect deals with Apple are rumored to include AT&T and Verizon, both of which have similar contracts with Netflix.

Apple has not publicly commented on its CDN plans, but the company is expected to use the network to deliver iOS and OS X downloads, while gradually transitioning its iTunes and App Store away from Akamai and other Level 3 CDNs.

"It's too early to know how much traffic will come over and when, but Apple's already started using their own CDN much faster than I expected. The pace of their build out and amount of money they are spending on infrastructure is incredible. Based on my calculations, Apple has already put in place multiple terabits per second of capacity and by the end of this year, will have invested well more than $100M in their CDN build out."

Apple allegedly has been working on building this content delivery network for several years, with a rapid acceleration in the past year to bring the service online. The rollout of this network brings content delivery under Apple's direct control, helping to ensure its customers can access data reliably and quickly.

Article Link: Apple's Content Delivery Network Now Live, Making Faster OS X/iOS Downloads Possible

koulmj · Jul 31, 2014

ios8 on the horizon!?!

iBlazed · Jul 31, 2014

Bye bye net neutrality.

penajmz · Jul 31, 2014

Excellent. Some downloads take way too long when they are first released.

iBlazed · Jul 31, 2014

koulmj said:
ios8 on the horizon!?!

Way to totally miss the point.

JonneyGee · Jul 31, 2014

Meanwhile, downloads won't change for most users due to pathetically slow ISP speed caps.

Cougarcat · Jul 31, 2014

Could've used this with the Yosemite beta...

Z400Racer37 · Jul 31, 2014

Am I the only one who went "WHOO!!" because of the excitement of all that bandwidth caused? lolll

afsnyder · Jul 31, 2014

So my OS X yosemite installer of 5gb took 25 minutes to download but updating to Devloper preview 2 (i don't know why it installed DP1...) took 4 hours.... and dev preview 3 of 1gb is taking 6 hours.

Will this mean faster downloads there?

mozumder · Jul 31, 2014

They really need to build their own last-mile ISPs..

RNB · Jul 31, 2014

How about fixing old things first?

I wish Apple would spend more time fixing the ongoing syncing of contacts, calendars, and especially photos through iCloud instead of coming up with new things. Sometimes photos show up, sometimes they never do. Not just me. I keep hoping, but I don't see these fixes mentioned. Maybe with the iCloud file sharing?

gnasher729 · Jul 31, 2014

iBlazed said:
Bye bye net neutrality.

With a comment like that, you should explain what you mean exactly by net neutrality, how it benefits whom, and how Apple's CDN would make a different to those benefits.

RNB said:
I wish Apple would spend more time fixing the ongoing syncing of contacts, calendars, and especially photos through iCloud instead of coming up with new things. Sometimes photos show up, sometimes they never do. Not just me. I keep hoping, but I don't see these fixes mentioned. Maybe with the iCloud file sharing?

I'd say that having more bandwidth surely won't hurt with these things.

kenroberts83 · Jul 31, 2014

Sounds cool, we'll see if it works when iOS 8 rolls out.

mnsportsgeek · Jul 31, 2014

Good news: I have Comcast. So hopefully this helps me to power through downloads of big apple releases like iOS and Mac upgrades.

Bad news: Apple shouldn't have caved to the ISPs. This is bad for the internet.

JoEw · Jul 31, 2014

Perhaps prepping for TV delivery as well? I see :apple:

TV on the horizon.

macgabe · Jul 31, 2014

Could they be using it for mail and messages? Here in France me and a friend had a few dropped messages recently and mail login problems - both seem to have resolved themselves this afternoon (backlog of messages and email came through).

Cinch · Jul 31, 2014

much bigger than just updates

I suspect, Apple has other things in mind than just your typical updates.

Apple TV, Rdio (Beats), personal video SMS, even photos are what Apple is hoping to develop relationships with ISPs.

Net neutrality is coming to an end, fast.

With respect to the economy in general, I see a dichotomy emerging here. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, you will be well serve but you'll have to pay for it, which means you have money and do not mind.

If you are not in the Apple ecosystem, good luck navigating the maze of sub-optimal options out there.

It is the have and have nots.

Dilster3k · Jul 31, 2014

Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

ixxx69 · Jul 31, 2014

RNB said:
I wish Apple would spend more time fixing the ongoing syncing of contacts, calendars, and especially photos through iCloud instead of coming up with new things...

While I think a lot of folks would like Apple to spend more time on fixing things that don't work as well as they should, you should understand that has absolutely NOTHING to do with CDN, any more than that they're building a new campus building has anything to do with their focus on software projects. It's not like they take developers away from working on iCloud to focus on CDN instead. It's a completely separate group of engineers and developers.

CDN is an investment in their infrastructure, and is rather vital when you think of more than a hundred million iOS devices all trying to download the latest iOS at the same time.

topmounter · Jul 31, 2014

They should save some money and use BitTorrent instead.

Codyak · Jul 31, 2014

gnasher729 said:
With a comment like that, you should explain what you mean exactly by net neutrality, how it benefits whom, and how Apple's CDN would make a different to those benefits.

Large corporations paying for connections smaller businesses and startups could never afford in order to keep the dominance they already have by preventing fair competition.

Do I fear this in regards to Apple? Not particularly, but I see this being used in far worse situations that in the end will only hurt the consumer with less competition and higher pricing.

octothorpe8 · Jul 31, 2014

Codyak said:
Large corporations paying for connections smaller businesses and startups could never afford in order to keep the dominance they already have by preventing fair competition.

Do I fear this in regards to Apple? Not particularly, but I see this being used in far worse situations that in the end will only hurt the consumer with less competition and higher pricing.

Exactly. It's not hard to see some startup dealing with, say, streaming video being shaken down by the ISPs for a "premium connection" or just live with really slow streaming speeds. That cost either gets passed on to consumers or (more likely) the startup just folds.

alent1234 · Jul 31, 2014

Codyak said:
Large corporations paying for connections smaller businesses and startups could never afford in order to keep the dominance they already have by preventing fair competition.

Do I fear this in regards to Apple? Not particularly, but I see this being used in far worse situations that in the end will only hurt the consumer with less competition and higher pricing.

there are at least a half dozen commercial CDN's that will take your business if you're a small company. or just send your traffic via Level 3 or Cogent

redscull · Jul 31, 2014

topmounter said:
They should save some money and use BitTorrent instead.

Seriously. Why spend all that effort making bigger pipes when they could have just used the existing pipes better. Why must every Apple device in my house download every patch or app itself when those exact bits are already on a device in my house. Nothing could ever be faster, not to mention more bandwidth cap friendly, than simply sharing the bits from one local device to another over the LAN.

alent1234 · Jul 31, 2014

octothorpe8 said:
Exactly. It's not hard to see some startup dealing with, say, streaming video being shaken down by the ISPs for a "premium connection" or just live with really slow streaming speeds. That cost either gets passed on to consumers or (more likely) the startup just folds.

these so called premium connections date back to the 90's

Apple's Content Delivery Network Now Live, Making Faster OS X/iOS Downloads Possible

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