Akamai Expands CDN to the RAN with Saguna

     

Saguna Networks expands its base-station caching technology, CODS, with CDN-Extend allowing it to participate in a CDN network.

According to the company, "It is a big step forward towards achieving our goal of creating an Open-RAN platform enabling any server-side application to run inside the RAN. CDN-Extend enables 3rd party CDNs to operate inside the mobile base station".

Saguna provides its technology to base station vendors on OEM basis (see "Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology - here and "Saguna's Optimization and Monetization Technology to be Deployed in 2014 - here).

One of Saguna's investors, Xenia, announced earlier this week (here, Hebrew) that the company raised $2M from a "strategic US investor, a leading player in distributed computing and communications networks, a financial investor from China and some of the owners", based on post-money valuation of $27M.

The first CDN provider partnering with Saguna is Akamai.

The company announced a ".. joint demonstration with Akamai .. showcasing the first Content Delivery Network (CDN) that operates from within the Mobile Base Station .. Getting content as close as possible to the mobile user is crucial to reducing round-trip-time (RTT) and making accurate performance tuning decisions, in order to improve the mobile Internet user experience. Radio network edge placement, in concert with the CDN serving the content, is especially beneficial when trying to optimize HTTPS content, since this type of content cannot be cached or optimized inside the mobile network using standard “transparent” caching methods or optimization techniques".

In the demonstration, Akamai’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) is integrated as a server-side application running on the Saguna CODS Open-RAN platform, which operates inside the mobile base station. Using Saguna CODS CDN-Extend, Akamai’s CDN can cache content for delivery as close as possible to mobile users at the mobile network edge".

See "Saguna and Akamai Showcase the World’s First Content Delivery Network Operating from the Mobile Base Station" - here.