Paper Title: Disaggregated high-performance storage for CDN

Paper Abstract: A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a geographically distributed network of cache servers spanning different Points of Presence (PoPs) to serve a collection of users across a particular geography. The original purpose of CDNs, which have been around for over two decades, was to reduce network congestion and improve the overall user experience by bringing content closer to the users. CDN services today have expanded beyond the distribution of web content to include software downloads, social media, live streaming, and video on demand. Video on demand is a particularly interesting and ever-growing use case. The number of customers being served drives how much processing is needed, and the amount of content being stored drives how much storage is needed. Since these two factors are usually not balanced or consistent, deploying fixed amounts of storage per server lead to inefficiency. In this discussion we will review the deployment of a new architecture that disaggregates high-performance NVMe-based storage from compute to allow each to be scaled separately resulting in a more efficient solution that delivers lower costs and better quality of service to video-on-demand customers.

Paper Author: Scott Hamilton, Data Center Systems BU, Western Digital

Author Bio: Scott Hamilton, Senior Director, Product Management at Western Digital, is leader of product management for the Platforms Business Unit that offers a diverse product portfolio spanning external storage, specialized storage servers, and composable disaggregated infrastructure. Scott has more than 30 years of experience the in storage, IT, and communications technologies. Prior to joining Western Digital, Scott was Vice President, Product Management & Advanced Solutions at Quantum. He has held various leadership positions in product and business line management, product marketing, technical sales, and engineering at Quantum, Emulex, Raytheon, General Electric, and other companies. Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.