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While they may very well win in court - their business will be destroyed. Why on earth was their CDN built around a single provider? Had they had multiple prov

by dedward 16y ago

While they may very well win in court - their business will be destroyed. Why on earth was their CDN built around a single provider? Had they had multiple providers,this would have ended in reduced capacity, with buffer time to re-deploy elsewhere. Sounds like a good lesson learned - when I need bandwidth X for Y years, I make sure I have solid contracts to that effect - not just relying on a simple clause about severability. If your business depends on your providers, you make sure your providers know what business you are in and make sure the contracts are solid.

timdorr 16y ago
It looks like they built it around two: UK2 (under multiple brands of theirs too) and Softlayer. But both colluded to shut down SimpleCDN at the same time. The main problem is they went to the datacenter providers first, not the network providers. DCs make their money over the long term by selling hardware cheap up front (just a monthly fee) and hoping ongoing costs remain low. CDNs put a high operating cost on the system, so it is one place they end up losing out big time. What they should have done is partnered directly with a network provider. I was looking over at the MaxCDN offer they linked to on the page and they appear to have partnered with Mzima. That's a smart move (Mzima's an awesome network; akin to Internap, but a lot cheaper). Maybe if SimpleCDN recovers from all of this, they'll start approaching things differently and stop trying to put stress on a business relationship where it hurts the most.
- dedward 16y ago
  That's odd - every datacenter (read: colocation facility) I've worked with had clear pricing for rack space, power, bandwidth, etc -I could use as much as I wanted, and I knew what I'd pay for it, and would re-negotiate if the regular usage was going to go higher. By DC's - do you mean some kind of web-hosting provider instead? Even the VM providers I use all have soft & hard limits on traffic stated clearly - in practice, anyone offering "unlimited" anything is automatically excluded from any kind of critical business hosting decision - because that's not realistic or maintainable.
- joshfraser 16y ago
  UK2 is a reseller of SoftLayer. SoftLayer have been pretty reputable up to this point and many large companies use them. SoftLayer also offers unlimited bandwidth but charges an extra $2,000 for it. It appears UK2/100TB are the shady ones here, although SoftLayer may have had a hand in shutting them down due to the competitive nature of their product.

by dedward 16y ago

timdorr 16y ago

It looks like they built it around two: UK2 (under multiple brands of theirs too) and Softlayer. But both colluded to shut down SimpleCDN at the same time. The main problem is they went to the datacenter providers first, not the network providers. DCs make their money over the long term by selling hardware cheap up front (just a monthly fee) and hoping ongoing costs remain low. CDNs put a high operating cost on the system, so it is one place they end up losing out big time. What they should have done is partnered directly with a network provider. I was looking over at the MaxCDN offer they linked to on the page and they appear to have partnered with Mzima. That's a smart move (Mzima's an awesome network; akin to Internap, but a lot cheaper). Maybe if SimpleCDN recovers from all of this, they'll start approaching things differently and stop trying to put stress on a business relationship where it hurts the most.

dedward 16y ago
That's odd - every datacenter (read: colocation facility) I've worked with had clear pricing for rack space, power, bandwidth, etc -I could use as much as I wanted, and I knew what I'd pay for it, and would re-negotiate if the regular usage was going to go higher. By DC's - do you mean some kind of web-hosting provider instead? Even the VM providers I use all have soft & hard limits on traffic stated clearly - in practice, anyone offering "unlimited" anything is automatically excluded from any kind of critical business hosting decision - because that's not realistic or maintainable.
joshfraser 16y ago
UK2 is a reseller of SoftLayer. SoftLayer have been pretty reputable up to this point and many large companies use them. SoftLayer also offers unlimited bandwidth but charges an extra $2,000 for it. It appears UK2/100TB are the shady ones here, although SoftLayer may have had a hand in shutting them down due to the competitive nature of their product.