Flow count: A CDN dynamic Replica Placement Algorithm for cross traffic optimization

Content Distribution Networks (CDN) are a popular technology to deliver content and have attracted great interest in recent years. Replica Placement Algorithms (RPA) are one of the main widely studied CDN strategies. In this paper we propose a new dynamic RPA strategy, very similar to the Greedy strategy, based on the count of data flows through network nodes. Our experiments show better results using the proposed Flow Count Strategy than using Greedy or Hotspot algorithms when considering cross traffic. Also, the obtained results show that Flow Count seems to place replica servers more efficiently during local flash crowd events.