That night, I was staring at the soaring latency curve on the monitoring dashboard, and I had one thought in my head: the crappy CDN was jerking around again, and users in the Asia-Pacific region were probably already cursing. We were using a bluff-sounding service provider, and it just dropped the ball at a critical time, making me have to get up in the night to cut traffic. After this incident, I realized that choosing a CDN is just like finding a marriage partner, you can't just look at the advertisement, you have to live a real life. Today, I'll talk to everyone from the bottom of my heart, I've been crawling and slogging in this industry for so many years, and I have some real opinions about NTT and Akamai, the two oldest CDNs.
You may think, CDN, is not just to throw the content to the node close to the user? How much difference can it make. Hey, don't believe this nonsense. I found that the doorway here is deep, from the network topology, caching policy to security integration, each link can let you experience the ice and fire. Especially when your business up, or encountered DDoS this kind of shit, choose the right CDN, you can sleep a peaceful sleep; choose the wrong, waiting for every day to put out the fire it.
Let's start with Akamai, which is the granddaddy of the industry and has a great reputation. My first contact with their services, or ten years ago to help a financial customer to do global acceleration, at that time they were shocked by the number of nodes and the depth of Akamai's selling point is very clear: I have one of the world's largest edge network, the nodes are too many to count, and a lot of them are embedded directly into the operator's network, which is the so-called “last-mile” advantage. This is the so-called "last mile" advantage. I've measured that for the mainstream markets of Europe, America and East Asia, Akamai's responsiveness is really first-rate, especially for dynamic content acceleration and some security services, which are quite fine.
But good things never come cheap, and Akamai's pricing strategy is, to put it politely, characterized by the arrogance of “use it or leave it”. Their sales models are often complex and highly customizable, which means long contract negotiation cycles and large initial investments. I've seen a lot of startups that were initially attracted by their aura, but when they calculated the cost, they gave up. So, if you have a limited budget or your business is just starting out, I urge you to be cautious and never strain your cash flow for a sign.
Let's take a look at NTT, the CDN service owned by NTT Communications. This guy is relatively low-profile, but the background is hard, behind the Japanese telecom giant, their own huge global backbone network. NTT's approach is not quite the same as Akamai, it is more inclined to take advantage of their own infrastructure, to provide stable, reliable transmission. I've used them for a couple of projects where access to Japan and the Asia-Pacific region is extremely demanding, and the feeling is two words: solid. Network latency and jitter are well controlled, especially within APAC, and the performance shines.
However, NTT's global coverage density, especially in places like South America and Africa, is a bit “finicky” compared to Akamai's “all over the place” style. Their edge nodes may not be so “edge”, sometimes need to rely more on back to the source optimization. But then again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Fewer nodes means that management and maintenance can be more uniform, and there are fewer things to go wrong. My personal experience is that if your user base is focused on Asia-Pacific, or if you have extreme requirements for network stability (e.g., online transactions, real-time communications), NTT is an option well worth considering.
It's not enough to just talk about feelings, let's get some real data to compare. For an e-commerce project, I once connected to both NTT and Akamai's test lines and ran them for a whole month. The test scenarios included static image loading, dynamic API calls and video streaming. Here I post a simple script used to collect key indicators, of course, the actual monitoring is much more complex than this, but the principle is similar.
The results of the run down are quite interesting. In North America and Europe, Akamai's median response time is roughly 10-20 milliseconds faster than NTT's, but this advantage is reversed in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in Japan and Singapore, where NTT is able to get around 30 milliseconds faster. As for video streaming, Akamai's algorithms for bitrate adaptation and buffer control seem to be more sophisticated, with slightly lower lag rates. But note that this is just a snapshot of what's going on at the network level; the real user experience involves cache hit rates, SSL handshake times, protocol optimization, and a bunch of other crap.
When it comes to security, it's probably the most important factor in choosing a CDN than performance, and Akamai's experience in the security field is nothing to sneeze at. Their Kona Site Defender and Prolexic programs, which I've tested, are really good at dealing with large-scale application layer DDoS and Web attacks. The rule base is updated quickly, mitigation centers are widely distributed, and the response is timely. But the cost? Expensive, and complex configuration, without a professional security team, you probably can not even play the console.
NTT's security service focuses more on basic network layer protection, relying on the cleaning capability of its own backbone network. For common network layer DDoS, the effect is very good and cost-effective. However, in terms of dealing with slow application layer attacks that mimic normal traffic, or fine-grained WAF rule customization, I feel that it is not as “aggressive” and comprehensive as Akamai. My suggestion is that if you are in a business that is very vulnerable to hacking, or in a high-risk industry such as finance or gaming, Akamai's added security may be worth the money. If you're just protecting against general traffic flooding, NTT's protection may be enough, and it's less of a hassle.
Next, let's talk about configuration and integration, which is where the most “experience” comes into play - Akamai's control panel, which is ridiculously powerful, is absolutely confusing for newcomers. Their Property Manager and EdgeWorker allow you to implement extremely granular caching, forwarding, and edge logic. For example, if you want to return different image formats based on the user's device type, you can do this (simplified example):
It's powerful, right? But the complexity of debugging and deployment also went up. NTT's configuration interface is relatively traditional and intuitive, more like an enhanced version of the traditional CDN management desk. Caching rules, SSL certificates, domain bindings and other basic functions are quick to set up. But for the kind of needs that require deep customization of the edge behavior, it may need to do more on the source station server, or through the API for secondary development. So, if your team is technically strong and likes to toss things around, Akamai can give you a stage. For a quick go-live and stable operation, NTT has a much flatter entry curve.
Another point that can be easily overlooked is technical support; Akamai's top-tier customer support is very responsive and can even assign you a dedicated solution architect. But only if you're one of their “top tier customers”. If you are a small or medium-sized package, the experience of waiting in line for a work order, hey, sometimes it is also quite honed patience.NTT support, I feel more inclined to the Japanese kind of meticulous and stable, problem solving may not be so “heavenly”, but the steps are clear, follow up in a timely manner. I once gave NTT a non-urgent technical advice in the middle of the night, and the next morning an engineer gave a detailed link analysis report, which made me feel good.
So, what exactly should I choose? Don't expect me to give you a one-size-fits-all answer, that's all just fooling white people. My experience is that you need to get your pants on straight: where are your core users? Are you casting a net all over the world, or are you deep in a certain region? What is your content type? Are they massive small images, large file downloads, or real-time interactions? What's your security threat model? What's the budget? What's the team's tech stack and O&M capabilities?
For example, if you are a streaming platform for global users, not bad for money, and have extreme security requirements, then Akamai's overall strength may be more suitable for you, although your heart is bleeding, but you can buy a peace of mind. If you are an e-commerce or business service website with main users in Japan and Southeast Asia, and pursue the ultimate access stability and cost-effective, then NTT is probably the right choice for you, and the bill looks more comfortable when you use it.
I have a few projects of my own where there are cases of mixed use. Throwing static resources and overseas user traffic to Akamai, and dynamic content and live streams from the main site in Asia-Pacific to NTT, and then scheduling them through intelligent DNS, although the initial setup is a bit troublesome, in the long run, it can take into account both performance and cost control. The DNS configuration logic here is roughly like this, of course, the actual production environment is much more complex:
Finally, one more word, don't sign a contract and everything will be fine. the performance of CDN is not static, the network environment is changing, and your business is also changing. Regular performance testing, monitoring of key indicators, communication with the provider, and when necessary to adjust or even switch, this is the practice of the old driver. I call this “CDN relationship management”, with the same love affair, you have to operate regularly.
In retrospect, there is no absolute winner in this duel between NTT and Akamai. Akamai is like an experienced and well-equipped special forces unit that can fight tough battles but is extremely costly to employ, while NTT is more like a well-trained conventional army relying on strong fortifications, with excellent defenses and value for money in its dominant defense zones. Your task, then, is to see where your battlegrounds are and choose the most suitable allies. Don't be blinded by the brand's aura, and don't let me say NTT is good and you're just going to rush in without a brain, everything has to be guided by your own real-world data and business needs. After all, the money spent and scolded, can be real.
Having been in this business for a long time, I've realized that technology selection is often, at the end of the day, a balancing act of art, cost, and risk. There is no perfect solution, only the most suitable choice for the moment. I hope that my experience summarized in these stumbles can help you step on a few less pits and get a few more good night's sleep. If you are not sure, build an environment and test it yourself, the data will not lie. Well, today's nagging here, I have to go check my monitoring alarms, do not ring in the middle of the night again.
