Enhanced Content Delivery

Mirror Image Internet's content access solution helps ISPs' caches to work together to improve performance for all.

by Wayne Kawamoto

Mirror Image Internet recently announced that service providers are adopting its instaSpeed Booster Service to provide faster and more consistent downloads.

The system aggregates caches in local ISPs through a Content Access Point (CAP), which is like a combination cache, router, and load balancer that negotiates between various caches to eliminate duplication. The process is described in detail in Mirror Image's White Paper.

According to the company, instaSpeed Booster can improve content delivery performance up to ten times. It's designed to be an economical content access option for service providers who want to benefit from enhanced content delivery, but don't want to make significant infrastructure and resource investments, including the purchase, installation, and management of additional caching hardware and software.

While local cache appliances may provide 25-40 percent hit rates on requested Web objects, the instaSpeed Booster Service is designed to leverage Mirror Image's CAP facilities to increase overall cache hit rates by an additional 25-50 percent. "By reducing download times and increasing the speed of content delivery, our instaSpeed service utilizes Mirror Image's cutting-edge CAP network to provide a critical service to our customers," said Chris Reisig, VP International Sales and Operations at Mirror Image. "Not only does the service eliminate download lag-time, it is extremely easy to deploy—service providers can be up and running in as little as ten minutes—and works with all major caching hardware, significantly improving the performance, scalability and return on investment of the overall caching system."

"Mirror Image instaSpeed Booster Service is the ideal solution for ISPs to increase the speed of content delivery," said David Wu, General Manager, instaDelivery Services and Strategy, Mirror Image Internet. "Mirror Image's instaSpeed Booster Service can deliver cache-originated content requests 2-10 times faster than the origin site, providing ISPs increased scalability for their existing cache system and improved ROI for the cache investment."

Content providers have signed up to use the service. They include Merrill Lynch, Bose Corporation, The New York City Marathon, Blackwells, siteROCK, OpenSystems.com, WorldWinner.com, Globuy AG, GTV.com, R3 Media, and Voxxy.

Service provider clients include Cybernet AG, germany.net, Interactive Networks, Nildram, RedNet, and Research Machines.

Pricing and availability
Mirror Image would not release its pricing model for publication, which the company says is consistent with competitors' policies. The company claims that its pricing system is a "pay as you grow" model, and that it allows companies to handle usage spikes.

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Related articles:
	[Oct. 30, 2000]	Edgix, Edge Services Provider
	[Sep. 1, 2000]	Mirror Image's White Paper for ISPs
	[Nov. 30, 1999]	Content Delivery Network: ISP Opportunity?