Microsoft announced the general availability (GA) of the Azure CDN, which allows customers to deliver content from Microsoft’s global Content Delivery Network (CDN). The release was a follow up on the previous public preview.
In May of this year, Microsoft added their native CDN option alongside existing provider options from Verizon and Akamai. Now with the GA release customers can, according to the announcement blog post, use the Azure CDN with full Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and create and change speeds more easily. The release also includes more features such as bring-your-own-certificate, regional caching, and the addition of more physical locations. Furthermore, the Azure CDN is now, together with CDN services from Verizon and Akamai, part of a multi-CDN ecosystem, providing direct, private access to content in Azure from each available CDN Edge point of presence (POP).
Maxwell Gattuso, program manager, Azure Networking, said in the announcement blog post:
Azure CDN’s multi-CDN ecosystem enables you to manage CDN as an Azure resource; on demand and API driven. This flexibility along with three strong CDN infrastructures enables you to easily add multi-CDN as part of your content delivery story. Using these CDN solutions on their own, side-by-side in a multi-CDN solution or tiering them to maximize reliability, offload and performance, you can focus on optimizing your delivery to suit your business needs.
With Azure CDN, customers can benefit from deep integration with other services like Web Apps, Media Services, and Storage. The Azure CDN is available in 62 locations, and the pricing details are available on the pricing page.
With the GA of Azure CDN Microsoft will enter the global cloud content delivery network market, which is expected to reach US$ 18,564.5 Mn in 2025, according to a transparency market research article. The major players in this market include Amazon Web Services, Alibaba Cloud, and Cloudflare.