Amazon starts content-delivery service

The Amazon subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS) says that it has started offering the CloudFront content delivery network. Amazon only announced the service in September 2008. According to the web site, the new service is still in beta testing.

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Developers and businesses can use Cloudfront for sharing digital content on a global scale via Amazon's storage network and HTTP. Customers only need to upload the objects to be shared – for example, HTML code, images or sounds – onto Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) and register them for content delivery using an API call. The API returns a domain name. This address will then be used by the nearest edge server in Amazon's network to automatically deliver the objects.

Cloudfront can be customised and comes without long-term contracts: prices are calculated according to transport volume and number of enquiries. However, the prices do vary according to geographical region; the company provides a calculator to help with establishing the total. Premium customers also have access to a personal 24-hour support line.

(lghp)