Amazon launches content delivery network

[sajiv]

In conjunction with its S3 storage offering and other Web Services products, ever-expanding Web giant Amazon has launched a beta version of a content delivery network called CloudFront.

The service, which promises "low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments," uses a global network of edge locations to keep the system humming.

Amazon announced in September its intentions to launch a CDN, with a target date of the end of 2008. It also made clear then that pricing would be consumption-based. Amazon has declared that there is "no minimum fee" for CloudFront; customers pay only for what they use.

There are loads of CDNs out there: it's an on-demand, business-focused offering for which companies are willing to pay good money. But because Amazon already has a big grip on the cloud with its existing Simple Storage Service, or S3, CloudFront is likely to be a power player from the start.