ATIS Cloud Services Forum Releases Content Distribution Network Interconnection Specifications

WASHINGTON, DC — The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) announced today that its Cloud Services Forum (CSF) has released the CDN Interconnection Use Case Specification and High Level Requirements (ATIS-0200003) standards document. The standard provides an initial description of content distribution networks (CDNs) and develops interconnection use cases and high-level requirements to support passing content distribution requests between two service providers.

The standard enables CDN interconnection (CDN-I) by providing for common interfaces between providers’ operations systems, back office interfaces, routing equipment, and network interconnections. The CSF’s end-to-end process perspective is designed specifically to improve the efficiency and quality of service delivery to end users. Completed in only three months, this effort demonstrates ATIS’ rapid response to evolving carrier needs and delivers inter-carrier solutions essential to broad adoption of cloud services.

“The standard marks a major step forward in enabling seamless, global content delivery, especially for video, between service providers,” said ATIS President and CEO, Susan Miller. “What sets the CSF’s work apart is its focus on business needs as the driver for better interconnection. This ATIS technical solution for inter-provider content delivery helps providers meet critical customer service imperatives–namely, the need to improve end-user experience through cost effective video delivery.”

This initial CSF standard is intended to serve as the basis for future efforts which will examine: 1) the delivery of more complex types of content such as live streaming, video on demand, and peak-hour web interactions involving the use of authorization and authentication procedures; 2) the use of multicast delivery methods for some of these content types; and 3) interaction scenarios in a multi-provider content distribution environment involving a Federated Exchange.

Until September 30, 2011 the new standard is available at no charge through the ATIS Document Center by entering promotional code “CSF711”. The Document Center is the leading online resource to published and pre-published telecommunication standards, as well as technical reports, requirements and guidelines produced by ATIS-sponsored industry forums and committees.