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What You Need To Know About CDNs

Jon Rettinger News

Did you know that over 50% of content online is processed via Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)?

A CDN is a distributed group of proxy servers, working as one system to improve the overall delivery of content online. CDNs were designed first and foremost to solve the issue of latency. Take a look at some of their other functions and benefits:

Savings - When a large majority of your website content is cached, less bandwidth is used.
SEO Ranking - Faster loading times directly improve SEO rankings according to Google.
Uptime - If one of your servers goes down, a CDN ensures your website stays up.
Safety - CDN offers protection from malicious bots and DDoS attacks.

As you can see, CDNs have a significant role in all areas of online operations. Read on to find out how they work.

How A CDN Works

The primary function of a CDN is to decrease the physical distance between an end user and the server where the content is hosted. It achieves this by placing copies of the website content on multiple proxy servers and is then able to serve the content from various strategic spots. This is the process that creates a faster loading experience.

Here is a more detailed break down of the process:

Users request content from a website.
The CDN intercepts the request.
The request is redirected to the closest Point of Presence (PoP).
When the content is cached already on the PoP, CDN delivers the content, which is called cache HIT. Alternatively, when the content is not cached, the request is sent to the original server called cache MISS.
By HIT, the CDN delivers the content to the user.

These are the sectors that rely on CDNs the most:

Government
Higher Education
Entertainment
Healthcare
Online Games
Ecommerce
Advertising
Advanced Education
Mobile

CDN Building Blocks

There are three hardware components on every CDN, as outlined below.

Points of Presence (PoP)

Servers that are positioned strategically to send content quickly to users within a geographical location are called PoP. Essentially, PoP refers to the physical data center where your CDN operates from, and every CDN consists of multiple caching servers. For example, you can use multiple PoPs in North America and the Asia Pacific for your website that targets users from around the world.

Caching Servers

Used for storage of cached content, caching servers are designed to reduce bandwidth usage and the total time taken to display the content on a website. Every caching server ideally consists of several storage devices.

SSD/HDD + RAM

The storage devices that keep the cached files are SSD (Solid State drives), HDD (Hard Disk Drives), and RAM (Random Access Memory). A rule of thumb is to store frequently used files on RAM, the fastest one out of the three storage options for CDN.

Why Is A CDN Not Part Of My Hosting Package?

History has a lot to do with why CDN is not included in your package. CDN debuted in the 1990s at a premium rate, as it was costly to set up and operate. This is why only the big players used this expensive option. As the costs associated with offering CDN have fallen significantly, today you can find CDN services offered for free, typically as an add-on to most hosting plans.

Some Examples

If you are still confused about who uses CDN, take a look at the following examples.

Ecommerce

Imagine the American website “Amy’s Boutique” is looking to expand into Spain. The owner of Amy’s Boutique can get a CDN server in Europe instead of investing in a new physical data center in order to cater to her new customer base. This saves time and money and provides potential customers from her target location a great experience.

Advertising

If Jack’s jewelry website wants to advertise to a customer in India, they can use a data center in the Asia Pacific to allow users in India to see their ads, with no lag or delay.

Blogs

Suppose your WordPress blog is hosted on an Arizonian server. When a user from Champagne visits the blog, the content will be fetched from the Paris CDN data center, thus reducing loading time.

Bottom Line

Without even realizing it, CDNs are the reason you are seeing words, pixels, and frames online. It is used across a wide range of industries such as advertising, entertainment, gaming, and more, and increases precious traffic and conversions for website owners worldwide. Check with your hosting provider how you can get a CDN set up today.