Amazon offers dynamic web support via cloud

Amazon Web Services has launched support for dynamic content in Amazon CloudFront, giving customers a cost-effective way to improve the performance, reliability and reach of their website. Dynamic content represent those parts of a website that change for each end-user, and Amazon is supporting this through applications that run in Amazon EC2, without any custom coding or proprietary configurations. All content, whether static or dynamic, will be charged at the same price.

 

CloudFront launched in 2008 as a low-cost and scalable solution for static web content. Improvements were made in 2009 to support video on demand via RTMP streaming, and live event support was added in 2011.

Tal Saraf, AWS’s General Manager for Amazon CloudFront, explained how the service continues to evolve:

 

“With this release, we are … making premium and innovative content delivery features that other CDNs sell at high prices much less expensive and much easier to use. Customers can use CloudFront to accelerate their dynamic content, and again, customers don’t have to pay any more than our already low rates. No up-front fees, no requirement to make a long term commitment, no monthly platform fees, no need to hire expensive consultants to help with configuration.”

 

Requests for dynamic, static and streaming content will all be routed through Amazon CloudFront’s worldwide network of edge locations. For an in-depth look at the features offered, and the engineering behind them, those of a technical persuasion should read the blog of Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon. Here’s his view of the latest developments:

 

“Amazon CloudFront has changed the content delivery landscape. It has demonstrated that a CDN does not have to be complex to use with expensive contracts, minimum commits, or upfront fees, such that you are forcibly locked into a single vendor for a long time. I am particularly excited about these features that help customers deliver both static and dynamic content through one distribution. CloudFront stays true to its mission in making a Content Delivery Network dead simple to use, and now they also do this for dynamic content.”