Multi CDN steering, decided per request

An edge worker builds an 11-dimension context vector from the request: region, content type, object size, hour of day, plus each provider's recent latency, error rate and saturation. A LinUCB contextual bandit (α = 1.2) scores every eligible provider and picks the highest upper-confidence-bound arm.

After the response, the observed latency and success flag are converted into a reward in [0,1] and folded back into that arm's matrices. The policy improves continuously without a retraining pipeline.

The learning loop is asynchronous. Decisions read a precomputed policy snapshot at the edge, so the steering layer adds microseconds of compute — not a proxy hop. Telemetry is aggregated into per-minute rollups (p95 and error rate per provider × region), so observability cost stays flat as traffic grows.

Real user monitoring beacons and synthetic probes feed an EWMA baseline per provider and region. When p95 latency or error rate breaks out of that baseline, a circuit breaker takes the provider out of the candidate pool and opens an incident. Requests above the latency threshold are re-issued against a hot-standby provider, which is what makes a compound SLA of 99.999% achievable from providers that individually offer less.

If you already negotiated per-TB pricing with Akamai or Cloudflare, keep it. In BYOK mode you store your own API credentials (encrypted at rest, validated with a live connection test) and the internal cost for that provider is set to $0.000, so the agent naturally prioritises your contract and only steers away when health degrades.

• DNS steering — point a CNAME at the EdgePilot resolver and get provider selection at resolution time. Coarsest granularity, zero code.
• Edge worker — deploy the decision function inside Cloudflare Workers, Lambda@Edge or Akamai EdgeWorkers for true per-request steering.
• RUM SDK — ship the beacon so real user latency, not just synthetic probes, trains the model for your actual audience.

What is multi CDN steering?

Distributing traffic across two or more CDNs and deciding per request — or per DNS resolution — which one serves it, based on live latency, errors and cost instead of a fixed percentage split.

Does the agent add latency?

No. Decisions read a precomputed policy at the edge; training happens asynchronously off the request path.

Can I keep my own CDN contracts?

Yes — BYOK mode uses your credentials and your pricing, and EdgePilot adds the redundancy and SLA layer on top.