a CDN (Content Delivery Network) with BiTorrent Sync

[4nt4n0f]

Hello,

First congratulations for the project, it's amazing !

I wonder if it's possible to create a folder to synchronize with a web server - as a cdn - to reduce its bandwidth.

thx

[GreatMarko]

That's actually a really interesting idea! I'm also curious to see if this can be implemented!

[fukawi2]

If you have 10 web servers, there's no reason btsync wouldn't be useful to synchronize the content, but there's a lot more to a CDN than just keeping the content in sync...

[Xanza]

Even if you were to successfully setup a service such as this, and get it working correctly, it in and of itself is NOT a proper CDN. I just wanted to clear up that misunderstanding.

That being said, this is a pretty good idea, however, I just don't see how the stock BTSync app would not be able to fit this purpose? Maybe if you could elaborate a bit more on your idea, that would be helpful.

[4nt4n0f]

OK Xanza

 

My intuition was right.
There is a great project here :

 

http://peercdn.com/

 

THX

[goli]

Hey there.

 

 

About peercdn:

 

Well, you're talking about completely different things.

 

This "peercdn" stuff claims to distribute resources from one visitor of your website to another through WebRTC features. That's not exaclty what WebRTC is made for, but sounds doable on the first look.

 

I guess you think it can be compared to btsync due to the fact that in both cases there is client-only communication for "dumb payload" such as pictures and stuff.

 

But it isn't. This "peercdn" thing completely relies on native browser features that only consist of a view JavaScript methods. That's "WebRTC", a thing which originaly was meant to do something like multi player browser games or chats. But only those browsers can play together nicely that can handle WebRTC. Not a single browser is creating its very own Webserver to distribute files to others, everything is done through WebRTC channels.

 

And here's the critical thing which makes it different from btsync: It has its very own protocol which is way different from btsync.

 

Sure, if you go down to "there are guys that created a booting Linux in JavaScript", then you're right. Then it can be done. But I really don't see any sense in reverse-engineering btsync an programming a btsync client in JavaScript. It doesn't make any sense in terms of both, efficiency and acceptance.

You will never ever get a significant amount of visitors of your website to have those kind of low-level uncontrollable security holes punched that they can really use btsync protocol to share locally cached objects. That's completely out of scope.

 

You can use existing browser extensions and features. peercdn shows an idea of how to do so. But you will never throw integrated browser communication mechanisms (like TCP socket connections to Webservers talking specific HTTP) away use your very own TCP or UDP protocol. That's for sure the point where your browser turns red and asks you if you really want to execute this highly dangerous stuff.

 

About using btsync as CDN in general:

 

Can be done. But this clearly is not a "client to client" thing in my eyes. It can only be part of a "backbone synchronization" thing. Say, having a couple of regular webservers and using btsync as replication strategy.

 

I really doubt that btsync becomes a CDN itself. You always need a webserver on top of that which distributes the synchronized files to your clients.

 

 

Regards,

Stephan.