Content Delivery Network CDN

CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of interconnected servers that speeds up the loading of pages of high-load web applications.

For example, when a user opens a website, all images placed on it must first be downloaded from the server. If the user is geographically far from the website server, the download time for the images may increase significantly. It is precisely to avoid this that CDN servers are used, which are geographically closer to users.

The main job of a CDN is to open points of presence (POPs) or groups of CDN edge servers in different geographic locations.

How CDN works:

1. Caching is the process of storing copies of data so that it can be quickly accessed when needed. In CDNs, caching involves storing static website content on multiple network servers.
2. Dynamic acceleration - reducing the response time of servers when a user interacts with dynamic web content. Dynamic acceleration uses intermediate CDN servers between websites and users.
3. Edge logical computations are performed on the CDN edge server and are designed to speed up data transfers between the client and the server. Therefore, distributing computations between web servers and the network edge helps improve loading speeds and overall website performance.

Areas of CDN application:

• High-speed delivery or download of content.
• Real-time streaming, such as for broadcasting live streams or news.
• Scaling users, i.e. supporting a large number of visitors to a website at the same time.

See also