PeerCDN is an open-source, distributed content delivery network (CDN) that promises to make the Web faster and more reliable while helping sites to reduce bandwidth costs.
GigaOM reported that a group of Web hackers have built a P2P-based CDN that crowd sources the delivery of data on a website with the help of a bit of Javascript. As per the report, WebRTC-based PeerCDN has been built to facilitate real-time communications like voice and video chat in the browser without the need for any plug-ins. To explain their approach, the developers have created a special screencast.
PeerCDN uses WebRTC’s data channel protocol, which was designed to enable developers of real-time communication applications to exchange data other than audio or video. GigaOM reporter Janko Roettgers thinks of it as a file transfer during a teleconference, or a multiplayer game based on WebRTC. Hence, in the case of PeerCDN, Iit sends files of a website directly from visitor to visitor,” wrote Roettgers.
The drawback of this approach is that WebRTC is still in the early stages of development. Also, the report shows that the data channel protocol has been implemented in Chrome and Firefox, which means that it will be available to the average Firefox user some time in the near future. Both browsers together account for 58 percent of global browser usage.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is going forward with its own version of WebRTC. The software giant’s Open Technologies unit has published a prototype implementation of
browser-based video chat that allows a user of a Mac OS-based Chrome browser to chat with a user running IE 10 on Windows. Similarly, media reports suggest that Apple is not yet ready to support WebRTC in Safari.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
