Dropbox API - File Delivery via CDN

[OMN]

Hi,

We are essentially a professional network and collaboration toolset for musicians — a kind of GitHub for music creators. The model we are building (at the beta stage) takes advantage of our customers’ use of (and trust in) Dropbox. All project assets including uncompressed audio files will be stored on, and synced through, users' Dropbox accounts.

We will be using the Dropbox API. But part of the challenge is to figure out how to stream and download those audio files from Dropbox with minimum latency. What flexibility do we have to deliver those files via a third party CDN such as Fastly, CloudFront, Akamai?

Regards, David

[Greg-DB]

While Dropbox does offer an API you can use for listing, uploading, and downloading files, among other operations, it doesn't have any native integration with third party CDNs.

If you're interested in building on the Dropbox API, you can find everything you need to get started including documentation, tutorials, and SDKs here:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers

For example, to directly access file data from a connected user's Dropbox account, you would use the /2/files/download endpoint:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-download

Or, to get a temporary link to a file, e.g., to stream in a client, you would use the /2/files/get_temporary_link endpoint:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-get_temporary_link

In both cases, the content is served by Dropbox content servers.

By the way, those are links to the documentation for the HTTPS endpoints themselves, but we recommend using one of the official SDKs if possible:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation

Those have corresponding native methods for the HTTPS endpoints. 

[OMN]

Thx.