The Anycast with Matt Levine
Latest Episode

Master Your CDN: The Edge Cache Advantage

This QuickCast kicks off with a relatable observation: every significant process, from a home renovation to complex system overhauls, has a challenging "middle" phase where everything seems to go wrong. Transitioning to network infrastructure, the discussion hones in on strategies to optimize content delivery. The speaker explores leveraging open caching to manage CDN performance, enabling seamless content purging and configuration adjustments across multiple networks simultaneously. A core focu

Recent Episodes

Master Your CDN: The Edge Cache Advantage
9
July 2, 2026

Master Your CDN: The Edge Cache Advantage

This QuickCast kicks off with a relatable observation: every significant process, from a home renovation to complex system overhauls, has a challenging "middle" phase where everything seems to go wrong. Transitioning to network infrastructure, the discussion hones in on strategies to optimize content delivery. The speaker explores leveraging open caching to manage CDN performance, enabling seamless content purging and configuration adjustments across multiple networks simultaneously. A core focu
Unlock Full Session Visibility with Media Tracing
8
June 24, 2026

Unlock Full Session Visibility with Media Tracing

This QuickCast dives into the innovative concept of Media Tracing, a new standard championed by CTA Wave. Discover how this proposal aims to revolutionize session monitoring by enabling comprehensive, end-to-end visibility of a single session across the entire media delivery stack, from acquisition to the final player. Learn why a unified standard is critical to overcome current challenges in piecing together fragmented session data. Key Takeaways Introducing Media Tracing: A project from the Qu
Are Your CDN Metrics Lying To You?
7
June 17, 2026

Are Your CDN Metrics Lying To You?

Episode Summary This QuickCast dives deep into the deceptive nature of common CDN performance metrics, particularly the 'cache hit rate'. Hosts discuss why a seemingly impressive cache hit rate can obscure significant underlying issues, leading to unexpected costs and customer headaches. Discover why looking beyond simple percentages is crucial for truly understanding your CDN's efficiency and impact. Key Takeaways Cache Hit Rate vs. Cache Byte Ratio: A high cache hit rate doesn't account for th
ICYMI - Multi-CDN and The Chaos Of Global Streaming, with Simon Ouderkirk
6
June 11, 2026

ICYMI - Multi-CDN and The Chaos Of Global Streaming, with Simon Ouderkirk

In Case You Missed It… Ever wondered what it takes to stream content to 200 million people across seven continents? In this episode of the Anycast, we dive deep into the world of high-scale infrastructure and multi-CDN strategy with Simon Ouderkirk from Hydraulics. Join us as we explore the hidden complexities of the internet and how the role of human strategy is evolving in an automated world. Simon shares his incredible professional background, spanning from the early days of Automattic and Tu
Multi-CDN and The Chaos Of Global Streaming, with Simon Ouderkirk
6
June 4, 2026

Multi-CDN and The Chaos Of Global Streaming, with Simon Ouderkirk

Matt Levine chats with Simon Ouderkirk, the VP of Product at Hydrolix, a streaming data lake built for log-intensive workloads that combines real-time and historical analytics at massive scale. They explore the hidden complexity of global content delivery, from multi-CDN architectures to the trade-offs between cost, reliability, and observability. Simon breaks down why perfect content delivery is impossible in real-world systems and how teams should design for failure rather than assume stabilit