A CDN, also known as a content delivery network, is a very commonly used solution by websites worldwide. It has a major role because it helps sites load faster, which can be a problem most of the time. If a website doesn’t load under 3 seconds, then a lot of the potential visitors will just move on and pick another website. That becomes a problem, and it’s also the reason why a CDN can indeed be extremely useful.
What is a CDN?
The content delivery network is basically a network of interconnected servers. The role of a CDN is to help ensure that the user will access a server close to them whenever they want to visit a website. That means faster speeds, and no need to worry that you can’t access the content on time or whenever you need it. That’s a gamechanger, since the content is stored on the CDN servers, and people have blazing speeds that makes the experience more cohesive.
What are the main benefits of using a CDN?
There are a vast array of reasons why any website would use a content delivery network. For a lot of regular internet users, a CDN might not seem very effective, and it can certainly bring some doubt. However, there’s no denying that CDNs are actively helpful for any business with a website. Here’s why:
- A CDN can make it much easier to lower the page loading times. For most people, that’s the reason why they might not continue using a website. These days, we all have a very short attention span. We barely have time to check stuff on a website, let alone wait for a website to load. So the role of a CDN is to always ensure everything works properly.
- Also, the CDN also helps increase the website security, too. For example, DDOS attacks are a lot easier to deal with. The CDN will distribute traffic load between servers. So the main server won’t be as affected when compared to a network without CDN. It’s certainly a reason why you need to take it into account!
- Since the CDN will handle most of the workload, your bandwidth costs are going down drastically. And that’s important if you are low on funds. Having such an opportunity always helps, and it definitely makes it easier for your business to keep funds under control.
How does a CDN work?
The way a CDN works is via creating a point of presence in multiple geographical regions. These networks use various technologies like dynamic acceleration, caching and edge logic computations. For example, with edge logic computation, you can easily program the server so it can perform logical computations that will help keep the server and client communication a lot simple. You can handle and validate any of the incorrect requests, inspect requests and change the caching behavior and so on.
With dynamic acceleration, a CDN will help lower the reduction time for servers. This technology relies on things like intelligent routing algorithms, along with geographic proximity to the origin and processing the client request on the spot.
Caching is one of the main technologies used by a CDN, and it works in a very simple manner:
- First, the website visitor will request static website content from your website.
- The request reaches the origin server, and that server will send the response to the remote visitor, while also sending a copy of that response to the CDN that’s closes to the visitor.
- In this case, the CDN server will store the copy as a cached file.
- So whenever the visitor or any other visitor will make a request, then the cache server will send a response.
- That means the first time a website is cached, it will take a little bit more to access the site. But after that, the entire process is much smoother and certainly move cohesive, which is a thing to keep in mind.
What can you use a CDN for?
A CDN comes with a plethora of use cases. There are companies who use a CDN to provide a better real time streaming experience for their users. CDNs are also ideal for high speed content delivery. And you also have multi-user scaling capabilities, which is very helpful. It’s a great technology to use if you’re looking to speed up loading times for users. And the great thing is that it doesn’t involve a lot of work from your side, aside from setup and some maintenance here and there.
Overall, we think that a CDN has a lot of potential and great benefits. The ability to speed up loading times can make the difference between getting tons of traffic or none at all. Plus, CDNs are easy to customize and manage, and you can reap the benefits in no time!
Recent Comments