Amazon Web Services (AWS) has given an insight into its CloudFront service, claiming to have achieved a peak of 268 Tb/s through the content delivery network (CDN).

The multi-terabyte claim was put down to major game delivery workloads, serving as one of the CDN's main use cases alongside video streaming delivery for major events such as the NFL Super Bowl.

Ashish Ajwani, head of global video playback and delivery, Amazon Prime Video, explained AWS's architecture leverages Amazon CloudFront’s elastic capacity and optimized caching at various layers to handle spikes in viewer demand. CloudFront caching operates by storing content at edge locations closer to users, utilizing over 750 points of presence (PoPs), across 440-plus locations worldwide.

To reduce latency, the service deploys embedded PoPs within Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks, allowing large content catalogs to be cached closer to end viewers. AWS currently operates over 1,140 of these PoPs through more than 100 ISPs in over 20 countries in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

ZK Research principal analyst Zeus Kerravala told SDxCentral that while hosting more PoPs is generally a safe bet, consumers still demand a consistent service.

“The features customers are looking for are low latency, high performance, consistency of service across PoPs, and data residency. More can become less when vendors have any kind of inconsistency.”

In its CloudFront breakdown, AWS claimed to have solved the quality over quantity issue through intelligent systems integrated with AWS Shield Standard, which together delineate between legitimate traffic surges and DDoS attacks. This system helped it handle the reported gaming-driven 268 Tb/s peak this month, equivalent in bandwidth to around 45 million viewers simultaneously streaming live sports in HD, according to Amazon. 

“CloudFront’s capacity management system handles legitimate 'flash crowds' – sudden, massive spikes in traffic that occur during events such as major game releases or live streaming events,” explained Akash Srivastava, senior product manager for Amazon CloudFront. “The system constantly monitors global traffic patterns and infrastructure health, routing content through optimal locations based on capacity, proximity, and performance.”

Earlier this year, AWS updated CloudFront to support HTTPS DNS records through Route 53. This helped enable browsers to establish HTTP/3 connections without an intermediate HTTP/2 protocol-discovery step, ultimately reducing CDN complexity.

Video content delivery providers such as Encompass have also been tapped to handle bandwidth loads during major sporting events, with the British firm recently supporting FIFA Club World Cup coverage for streaming platform DAZN.

Live signals from the event were fed into Encompass’s cloud platform, where additional services like digital-rights management (DRM), over-the-top (OTT) packaging, and content delivery network (CDN) distribution were deployed.

DAZN targeted up to one million concurrent viewers with its FIFA coverage, requiring cloud-based scalability across multiple CDNs, as leveraged using Encompass’s facilities' own fiber network, backed up with an internet-based IP network.