In the last couple of years, technology has changed the digital landscape of content. With increased internet penetration, businesses are looking for a better way to deliver their content to their target audience.
Also, it needs to be noted that the internet speed has also increased many folds in the last couple of years making it possible to create complex websites that are media-rich.
With such improvements, the expectations of the customers have also increased and they are looking for ways to consume content with minimum latency; this has given rise to the popularity of Content Delivery Networks or CDNs.
What Is CDN?
Any popular website that has huge traffic probably uses a CDN and this reference is important to understand what exactly a CDN is.
It is now clear from the usage of CDN that it is used to ensure that the high traffic does not hamper the working of the website. CDN basically is a network of servers that are located in data centers all across the world.
CDN is mainly used to deliver the content of the internet at a quicker pace. CDN is mostly used for loading internet content which is not limited but includes images, videos, javascript files, stylesheets, and HTML pages.
The majority of the web traffic of popular websites like Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook is served through CDNs.
In short, it can be assumed that all the content that you consume on the internet from new sites to YouTube videos is served by CDNs and you are interacting with CDNs on a daily basis.
How Does It Work?
CDN comprises a network of servers that are linked together with the common aim of delivering the content to the audience in a secure, reliable, and cheap manner at a quicker pace.
CDN mainly focuses on reducing the distance between the server of the website and the visitor. CDN makes it possible by storing a cached version of the content in multiple geographical locations which can also be referred to as points of presence or PoPs.
All the PoP further consists of caching servers whose job is to deliver the content to the visitors that lies within its proximity. In short, CDN ensures good coverage for the user by placing the content in multiple locations simultaneously.
Advantages Of Using CDN
From the very purpose of CDNs, the advantages of CDNs can be listed. Listed below are a few of the advantages of using CDNs.
01. It improves the load time of a website page
When CDN is enabled, the loading time of the web pages reduces drastically as this gives a pleasant experience to the visitors.
Also, the reduced loading time further reduces the bounce rate of a website which can negatively impact its rating on any search engine. CDN ensures that the bounce rate is low by loading the pages faster so that the visitors do not have to wait long to lay their hands on the content.
02. Hosting cost is reduced by reducing bandwidth cost
A heavy bandwidth is consumed whenever an origin server requires to respond to requests and this results in an additional cost for any business.
CDNs lower this cost with the help of optimization and caching and ensure that the amount of data that an origin server requires to process is less. This further reduces the hosting cost too.
03. Smooth experience for simultaneous users
A CDN is powerful enough to handle massive traffic smoothly. With CDN, one can ensure that many users are able to access the same network at the same time simultaneously without any delay.
04. Constant availability of content
Servers that work for CDN are always running and this means that even if your server is down, CDN will ensure that your website is accessible.
The distributed nature of a CDN ensures that even if one of the CDN servers goes down, another picks up to ensure that the website is always running.
05. It protects the website
CDNs are designed in a manner that they can defend the website from both DoS and DDoS attacks. In such attacks, basically, the website is flooded with junk network traffic with the aim to crash the website with huge loads but thanks to numerous servers of CDNs, all the traffic is absorbed smoothly. This ensures that the website is running even when it is under attack.
The advantages of CDNs are realized by the website owners of large websites. Therefore, you will find advertising, media and entertainment, e-commerce, online gaming, mobile, education, government, and health sector using CDNs on their website.
Details of Top CDN Platforms Listed in This Article
01. G-Core Labs
G-Core Labs is a global provider of cloud solutions. The company offers a wide range of products and services, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platforms as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and managed services.
G-Core Labs provides a wide range of cloud solutions for businesses of all sizes. The company offers a variety of products and services, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platforms as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and managed services.
Key Features:
- Fast, Reliable, and Scalable
- Global Content Delivery Network
- 140+ PoPs around the world
- 11,000+ Peering partners
- HTTP/2, SPDY, QUIC
G-Core Labs CDN is a global content delivery network that provides fast, reliable, and scalable delivery of web content and applications. The CDN is powered by a global network of 140+ points of presence (PoPs) located around the world.
The CDN supports all major web protocols, including HTTP/2, SPDY, and QUIC. It offers a completely free plan as well as affordable pricing options with more features.
02. Google Cloud CDN
Google Cloud CDN is a content delivery network (CDN) that uses Google’s global network of edge locations to deliver content to users with low latency and high performance.
Requested URLs are cached on servers located at the edge of Google’s network, and are then served to users from the nearest edge location. This reduces latency and improves performance for users who are far from the origin server.
Google Cloud CDN can be used to deliver a variety of content, including websites, applications, video, and images.
It is a fully managed service that takes care of all aspects of CDN operations, including caching, routing, and security. Google Cloud CDN is integrated with other Google.
- Low latency and high performance – users get the content they need quickly, without having to wait for it to be delivered from a far-away server.
- Reduced bandwidth costs – by caching content at the edge of the network, Google Cloud CDN can reduce the amount of bandwidth that your website or application uses.
- Easy to use and manage – Google Cloud CDN is a fully managed service, so you don’t have to worry about maintaining or administering it. It’s also integrated with other Google services, making it easy to set up and use.
03. Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is a web service that accelerates content delivery to users by routing requests through a global network of edge locations.
Edge locations are data centers that are located at strategic points around the world, closer to users than the origin server. When a user requests content that is served by CloudFront, the request is automatically routed to the edge location that provides the lowest latency (time delay), so that content is delivered with the best possible performance.
CloudFront has a number of features that make it an attractive option for content delivery, including low latency, high data transfer speeds, no minimum usage commitments, and pay-as-you-go pricing.
In addition, CloudFront integrates with other AWS services to give you additional flexibility and functionality. For example, you can use Amazon S3 to store your origin files (the files that you want to distribute to users), and then configure CloudFront to retrieve the files from Amazon S3.
- 310+ Globally placed Points of Presence.
- It will accelerate content delivery to users by routing requests through a global network of edge locations.
- Edge locations are data centers that are located at strategic points around the world.
- Improve security with traffic encryption and access controls.
