ABSTRACT
In previous attempts to deliver content directly over the Internet Protocol (IP) multicast channels using, for example, class D IP addresses, a total lack of control of both the channel by content producers and the content by consumers is evidenced making this technique charming from an academic viewpoint but less appealing indeed from a business perspective. Nowadays content is mostly accessed on the web, but the web as a distributed system still depends on web servers, which are centralized systems subject to the weakness of a single point of failure, namely, the origin server. As a consequence of both the evolution of technology and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) specifications, a wide range of content delivery solutions (Hofmann and Beaumont 2005) have emerged over the last few years that increases reliability.
