Content delivery network (CDN)

• Why is a content delivery network (CDN) important?
• Types of content delivery network (CDN)
• Examples of content delivery network (CDN)
• Amazon CloudFront
• Google Cloud CDN
• MaxCDN (StackPath)
• Handy tips about content delivery network (CDN)
• Understand your needs
• Security
• Support services
• Conclusion
• Frequently Asked Questions
• What is a content delivery network (CDN)?
• Why is a content delivery network (CDN) important?
• What are the different types of CDNs?

Content delivery network, widely known as CDN, is an integral part of keeping the digital world moving at a speedy pace. It interprets usability, outlines beneficial aspects, and provides a preliminary guide to get started.

What is a content delivery network (CDN)?

A content delivery network (CDN) is an extensive network of servers placed in strategic geographical locations across the globe with the purpose of delivering digital content at high speed and performance to users. These servers, known as points of presence (PoPs), store copies of data so that they can rapidly serve users based on their location. This essentially serves to minimize latency, thus ensuring quick delivery of content over the internet.

Today, CDNs are heavily employed by companies that need to deliver large amounts of data to global users quickly and efficiently. These companies range from media giants like Netflix to e-commerce entities like Amazon. CDN usage goes far beyond these industries, it’s leveraged by organizations of any size or scale that value the velocity and reliability of their content delivery.

The core concept of a CDN is to optimally leverage networking hierarchy to facilitate content delivery. It’s about making the digital world a smaller place, one where speed and efficiency are prioritized and everybody can access content with minimal interruption.

Why is a content delivery network (CDN) important?

In the digital world, time equates to revenue. The importance of a CDN can never be overstressed as it directly impacts user experience, SEO rankings, and ultimately, a business’s bottom line. Using a CDN enables businesses to offer a high quality user experience to their customers no matter where they are based geographically. This, in turn, helps in fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Apart from speed and performance, CDN mitigates the risk of having a single point of failure. By having your data replicated across a network of servers, if something happens to one server, another takes over, thus ensuring continuous and uninterrupted service. In today’s competitive digital environment, providing reliable service to customers has become mandatory for businesses.

Moreover, CDNs greatly help in absorbing sudden traffic spikes and DDoS attacks. This especially holds true for content-heavy and global platforms such as news sites or social media platforms. In such scenarios, CDN acts as the first line of defence, simultaneously ensuring seamless performance.

Types of content delivery network (CDN)

Despite their overall objective remaining similar, CDNs can be largely segregated into three types: Traditional CDNs, Peer-to-Peer CDNs, and Multi-CDNs.

Traditional CDNs are those where all content is unified across the network of servers without any variance. This is ideal for companies that have users scattered geographically. Peer-to-Peer CDNs, on the other hand, are distributed networks where devices (referred as nodes) interact with each other to share content. This type is leveraged by companies that require real time data transmission. Lastly, Multi-CDNs are essentially a network of multiple CDNs which are used to further ensure enhanced performance and higher service availability.

The choice of a CDN type should be primarily dictated by a company’s specific requirements considering factors such as their customer base, type of content they deliver, and the level of