Content delivery network, CDN, is a globally distributed network of Points of Presence (PoP) designed to provide faster and reliable content delivery to users. Whether we know it or not, every one of us interacts with CDNs daily; when reading articles on news sites, shopping online, watching Netflix, or scrolling through social media feeds. CDN is the helper behind your seamless experience. It helps minimize loading time, costs, delivery latency, and operational complexity by physically reducing the distance between content providers and users worldwide.
How does CDN work?
For example, when a user in the U.S. wants to load a website hosted in China, the user will need to send a request to the origin in China, and then the origin will send content from China to the U.S. However, it takes a longer time to load the content and might hamper the user experience. This is when CDN comes in. CDN keeps a copy of content at its own PoPs around the world. Based on users’ location, CDN serves the content to users from nearby PoPs whenever possible.
What are the benefits of using CDN?
- Faster load time: Instead of sending requests to the origin and waiting for it to respond, the user will receive content from the CDN PoP nearby to reduce the latency.
- Higher scalability: CDN can serve 40-200 Tbps at the peak of the traffic. It can provide an always-on experience globally, even under unpredictable situations such as malicious attacks or origin failure.
- Lower bandwidth costs: Through caching and request optimizations, CDN helps content providers significantly reduce delivery costs since most traffic no longer egress from the origin.
- Better security: CDN acts as a proxy in front of the origin server, which adds an extra layer to security by hiding the origin’s real IP.
Why is CDN essential in this pandemic?
Because of COVID-19, most people are on digital platforms more frequently for working, attending online classes, watching live streaming, gaming, etc. Due to the enormous traffic, the entire digital pipeline is becoming more sensitive to latency and security.
CDN can help deliver content in a fast, secured, and seamless way ensuring a consistent and optimized user experience worldwide.
* Please check the original article on TechRadar.
BaishanCloud
BaishanCloud is a leading global data service provider specialized in cross-border content delivery and edge security in China and Asia. To get more articles on trendy topics related to cloud delivery, streaming best practices, edge security, cloud technology in China and Asia, please visit www.baishancloud.com and subscribe to the BaishanCloud newsletter.
