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Last November, we announced a community technology preview (CTP) of the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). The Windows Azure CDN enhances end user performance and reliability by placing copies of data, at various points in a network, so that they are distributed closer to the user. The Windows Azure CDN today delivers many Microsoft products – such as Windows Update, Zune videos, and Bing Maps - which customers know and use every day. By adding the CDN to Windows Azure capabilities, we’ve made this large-scale network available to all our Windows Azure customers.
To date, this service has been available at no charge. Today, we’re announcing pricing for the Windows Azure CDN for all billing periods that begin after June 30, 2010. The following three billing meters and rates will apply for the CDN:
With 19 locations globally (United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America), the Windows Azure CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content. The Windows Azure CDN caches your Windows Azure blobs at strategically placed locations to provide maximum bandwidth for delivering your content to users. You can enable CDN delivery for any storage account via the Windows Azure Developer Portal.
Windows Azure CDN charges will not include fees associated with transferring this data from Windows Azure Storage to CDN. Any data transfers and storage transactions incurred to get data from Windows Azure Storage to the CDN will be charged separately at our normal Windows Azure Storage rates. CDN charges are incurred for data requests it receives and for the data it transfers out to satisfy these requests.
All usage for billing periods beginning prior to July 1, 2010 will not be charged. To help you determine which pricing plan best suits your needs, please review the comparison table, which includes this information.
To learn more about the Windows Azure CDN and how to get started, please be sure to read our previous blog post or visit the FAQ section on WindowsAzure.com.
Thanks for announcing the pricing! So here's a question for you regarding the cost of transferring from Azure storage to CDN: is that considered outbound traffic (e.g. leaving the data center)? If so: Am I then charged 0.15 per GB outbound to a USA/European CDN and 0.45 per GB outbound to an Asian CDN?
David, Microsoft does not own the CDN, they lease a variety of 3rd party services. Therefore you pay outbound traffic from Windows Azure Storage nodes, and again at the CDN endpoint. Also keep in mind that CDN content can expire if not requested, meaning that when you get a CDN request for that content, it will download it again from Storage, charging you again. More info here: azure.snagy.name/blog
Not sure where you are getting this information but it's MS CDN not 3rd party.
I retract my previous statement. It used to be the case but since 2007 Microsoft has had an internal team ECN building CDN services. Currently the blob storage CDN is 100% on Microsoft hardware at all content edges. I spoke with someone on the Azure CDN team today and posted more information about it all here: azure.snagy.name/blog
Sorry for the confusion.
Yes David. You will be charged 0.15 per GB outbound to a USA/European CDN and 0.45 per GB outbound to an Asian CDN.
Azure CDN pricing is very competitive compared to other players like Amazon CloudFront and SimpleCDN. Great announcement.