SimpleCDN delivers on pricing and new features
In late December we reported on a new content delivery system by company SimpleCDN, promising to provide capabilities comparable to competitors such as Amazon and Akamai for a fraction of the cost.
My analysis of the service in December was positive overall. I can now report that SimpleCDN has further expanded it’s offering with new services and a pricing initiative sure to demand attention. Since December, SimpleCDN has introduced a series of new services and a pricing structure for it’s just-released StormFront delivery offering.
The new features
Users of SimpleCDN are now able to password protect content carried on the network. By using this facility you can restrict access to bucket contents and limit content to downloaders you choose to provide password credentials to.
Content within buckets can be automatically refreshed on demand. The synchronisation between buckets and your origin server is an automated process, but it can now be sped up by using this option. This option is only applicable to Auto and Mirror buckets.
SimpleCDN now includes a facility to delete your buckets from the system. Before the introduction of this facility you would need to contact support to have this task performed.
StormFront Pricing
SimpleCDN continues to provide a range of content distribution options by adding it’s new StormFront product and. Under StormFront pricing customers are charged an initial one-time fee of $399 per gigabyte of storage used, and then 3.9 cents per gigabyte transferred out (downloaded) from their storage servers.
Under this plan they also waive any charges for server requests which you would incur under other plans. You are never charged any transfer fees under any plans for the initial upload of your data to the content network.
Promised features still to come
SimpleCDN are due to continue enhancing their website by including a message board. Hopefully this will be on the cards in the next few months.
Some features I would like to see available
SimpleCDN are rapidly expanding their network or edge servers, potentially bringing content closer and closer to end users. Edge caching appears to be an excellent method to accelerate content delivery to your customers without the problems you might face with other technologies and solutions which threaten net neutrality. I would really like to see SimpleCDN deploy edge servers in New Zealand to further enhance services to Kiwis. The closest edge server that SimpleCDN has publicly announced is to be located in Sydney, Australia.
Content owners using the SimpleCDN service have a number of plans to select from so they can pick the level of service and pricing appropriate to their needs. Under the SimpleCDN S3Plus service you can save money on storage and transfer fees by delivering content from just three servers instead of the full content network which consists of almost a dozen server locations.
I would like the facility to select which three locations to delivery from. This would allow content owners to select server locations which are as geographically close to target users as possible.
Any Issues?
Since evaluating the service since December I did experience one email request to SimpleCDN’s technical support which went unanswered.
Conclusion
I would highly recommend this service as a strong competitor to Amazon and Akamai. The services seems to have the capability to scale for both small and enterprize customers at a price point sure to demand consideration. I look forward to seeing what SimpleCDN has in store for the future. Stay tuned for updates!
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Tags: SimpleCDN
June 16th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
We started using SimpleCDN’s service before they changed their usage plans. In their system you have to pay upfront for the service; you have an account and they deduce your usage from what you’ve deposited. When they changed their usage plans they asked for a new setup fee, which we weren’t willing to pay. I’ve been requesting that they refund our forward payment for months now, and they simply ignore us. I really don’t recommend doing business with those guys. After a while they’ll simply change contract rules and keep your money.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
As commented on on your other post about SimpleCDN – the system works well however they seem very slow to respond (if at all – I am still waiting) to any enquiry/support requests.
Note that the service names and pricing has changed from what you show above – I gather this happened a few times in the past based on your earlier post.
Anyway with no/slow response to my sales inquiry I am not encourage despite the excellent performance of the system. The last thing I need is to have GB of assets there and they go belly-up which is likely if they do not respond to sales queries.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
So I just received a reply, and guess what… they seem to be changing things yet again, here is what I got in response to inquiry about the Hurricane service:
“We are currently re-structuring the Hurricane service, and we have a firm date of next Monday for our new services. We can instantly set you up and get you going on Monday.”
Guess I’ll wait till Monday.
I really hope for the best as their system is good so I hope they get their act together.
If Amazon adds RTMP to CloudFront they will certainly be a more attractive option in terms of peace-of-mind even though their pricing is higher.