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The Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a series of geographically distributed networks of servers that store and serve web content such as images, videos and HTML to users that are closer to the server’s physical location. This method of distributed traffic management is targeted at ensuring optimum performance of websites by evenly spreading website traffic and reducing potential server load.
CDN reduces latency, speeds up website loading and enhances user experience by bringing website content closer to where it is needed most.
How the Content Delivery Network Works:
CDN is implemented as follows:
1) Content Replication
2) Geographical Distribution
3) Content Delivery
4) Reduced Latency
Content Replication:
This is achieved by replicating the original website content such as images, videos, JavaScript, CSS and other content and storing them on multiple servers within the network of the CDN. This replicated content is then sent to users when they make a request for corresponding web content and is updated in real time when new content are updates are available.
Geographical Distribution:
A Content Delivery Network is a geographically distributed network that uses strategically located servers, also known as edge servers or points of presence (PoPs), across various regions or continents. Multiple regional servers are often designated to serve particular users as per their regions.
Content Delivery:
When a user requests content from a website, the CDN automatically determines the closest edge server or PoPs to the user and serves the requested content from that server.
Reduced Latency:
CDN has increased potential for improving page load times by minimizing latency and significantly reducing the distance that data needs to travel. This is achieved by delivering content from a server close to the user.
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Benefits of using a Content Delivery Network (CDN):
CDN brings immense benefits to website owners and businesses, ranging from bullet-proof security to 24/7 uptime and blazing-fast websites.
The following are the benefits:
1) Faster Load Times
2) Improved Performance
3) Enhanced User Experience
Faster Load Times:
4) Cost Savings
5) Increased Reliability
6) Security
Faster Load Times
Content Delivery Network offers faster website loading times and speeds, a key factor in a positive user experience. This is because multiple servers are deployed to serve content to users, reducing the potential load on local servers.
Improved Performance:
CDN is built with premium infrastructure that can handle high traffic volumes, ensure optimum website performance and prevent bottlenecks.
Enhanced User Experience:
The Content Delivery Network promotes enhanced user experience by reducing latency and faster loading times and minimizing potential bounce rates. Website users tend to spend more time on a website that loads quickly and delivers requested content in a timely manner. However, slow-responding websites are a turn-off and a no-go for most users.
Cost Savings:
CDN reduces bandwidth cost by diverting some of the server load to point of presence or edge servers located in designated regions and serving content to users based on their geographical locations.
Increased Reliability:
CDN promotes increased reliability by providing fallover mechanisms to keep websites online in situations of local server failure or other difficulties or issues.
Security:
CDN is equipped with security measures that protect against denial-of-service attack (DOS) or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. This it does by spreading server load across multiple servers.
What is a Content Delivery Network?
CDN is a geographically distributed network of edge servers or points of presence that stores and serves optimized content to users based on their closeness to the physical location of the servers. These contents may include images, videos and HTML.
Examples of CDN Providers:
1) Cloudflare
2) Amazon CloudFront
3) Vastly
4) Akamai
Depending on your business needs, some of these platforms, especially Cloudflare, provide free CDN with limited functions for websites and applications. CDN provides immense protection for websites, especially against Denial-of-Service and Distributed-Denial-of-Service attacks. CDN ensures optimum website performance by taking significant load away from local servers. Several business website design services now incorporate CDN to help spread user traffic according to geographical areas.