This Recommendation is intended to be used as a reference for procurement of CDN services.
It aims to capture a baseline set of media requirements that can be used by EBU Members to select CDNs in procurement processes. The current document version 2 contains updates based on the conclusions of a workshop with the industry held in 2024.
The document is not only intended to to help EBU Members in their procurements processes, but also to inform the CDN industry of technical requirements that are regarded as essential by EBU Members.
While the document primarily addresses single-CDN scenarios, the same principles also apply for multi-CDN deployments with private and/or public setups. The document covers streaming media use cases only (e.g. DASH/HLS streams).
A checklist of functional requirements in general terms is also included an can be used in whole or in part in procurement documentation.
Additionally, the Recommendation contains a sample media delivery Service Level Agreement that may be used as an example of how to measure quality delivery over the lifetime of the contract (operational fulfilment of requirement during contract term and alignment of technical requirements with operational requirements).
Key Words: Distribution, Online, Content Delivery Network, CDN, Procurement, Invitation To Tender, ITT, Service Level Agreement, SLA, Site Acceptance Testing, SAT.
All versions of this publication
2025-01-20: The changes in this version 2.0 resulted from industry comments received during a webinar in September 2023 and from ongoing insights within the group.
