Collecting Data From Origin Services
Before streaming content is delivered from a CDN cache to a requesting user, it comes from an origin. Whether in the cloud such as Amazon S3, or in a datacenter, an origin serves as the repository of all master content that is provided to viewers or listeners. But hosting that content on operator-owned servers can be costly. That’s why many publishers have turned to managed origin services: third-party storage that provide redundant and reliable solutions for content origin.
01
Using Datazoom Origin Services data collectors, users can gain better insight into origin storage performance and availability
Understanding Key Origin Services Metrics and Challenges
Effective content delivery relies on shielding the origin from too many requests. In order to do this, publishers have also turned to managed CDN services that cache copies in data centers located physically closer to end-users. A CDN can distribute requests across hundreds or even thousands of servers, allowing content to be delivered to a far greater number of users simultaneously. If those same requests were all passed to the origin, not only would it quickly become unavailable with no one being able to get the content, but it would also be much more expensive than serving content from a CDN.
To further complicate things, not all content can be retrieved from cache. Cache hit efficiency, a key metric to understanding CDN performance, defines the percentage of times that a request for content is served from the cache rather than from the content origin. As such, it’s important for network operators to understand which requests are being served from the origin, and the performance of the origin in serving those requests.
What are the challenges with origin services facing streaming operators?
Availability
When origin services are not available, such as when there is an outage and a cache miss is generated, the content can’t be retrieved. Operators must know the state of origin service availability to ensure that the content origin is always ready to serve content.
02
Datazoom has integrations with many popular origin services to ensure your data can be sent to the data storage against which your visualization tools work.
Supported Origin Services
There are many origin services available to content owners for storing content. Datazoom provides a data collector for a number of the world’s most popular origin services:
