Point of delivery (networking)

A point of delivery, or PoD, is "a module of network, compute, storage, and application components that work together to deliver networking services. The PoD is a repeatable design pattern, and its components maximize the modularity, scalability, and manageability of data centers."[1]

The modular design principle has been applied to telephone and data networks, for instance through a repeatable node design describing the configuration of equipment housed in point of presence facilities. The term is similarly used in cable video networks,[2] to describe the modular component that delivers video service to a subscriber. The distinction of a PoD versus other design patterns is that it is a deployable module which delivers a service.

The PoD design pattern is especially important in service provider infrastructure, for instance in datacenters supporting cloud computing services, in order to sustain scalability as usage grows.