Any idea about CDN...?

[elliemorgan780]

Hi,
Anyone knows about CDN technology, detailed information is appreciated.
Thanks

[Emmagarcia]

What is CDN?

CDN means "Content Delivery Network". These are worldwide networks with multiple server farms used to hold requests for static files. All the CSS/JS files, all the images or videos hosted on your website's server. A CDN can offload those resources and spread out them throughout the globe for much quicker processing.

How CDNs Work

Each file you upload to a source server is then replicated throughout a number of cache servers around the planet. Once a client requests your website the CDN find out their location based on the total number of exit nodes.

So a visitor from USA accessing your web host in France or Germany will typically have a much longer loading time than somebody located elsewhere in Europe.

But with a CDN all your images and static files will be loaded quicker, and this frees up bandwidth in each HTTP request so your host can query pages or posts from the database. Having a quicker load time will impact performance, visitor's beliefs of your website, and probably increase sales and revenue.

This is mainly useful for mobile users if your website isn't optimized for smaller screens. When somebody is on their Smartphone without Wi-Fi it can take much more time to collect all the necessary resources for each page. A well-managed CDN will get pages moving faster and ideally keep your visitors browsing longer.

Advantages

Obviously the faster loading times will bring more advantages from each visitor as a side-effect. But you can also manage traffic easier without struggling during bursts of viral sharing. You may be surprised how quickly an article will spread through Facebook or Reddit. When you normally pull 1000 unique a day, receiving a spurt of 30k visitors can put quite a strain on your web host.

CDNs are stands on geographic location so you know the files are getting delivered as quick as possible. It means streaming audio/video media will be quick no matter where people are viewing from. YouTube has a distributed cloud setup much like this - and now any startup or company has the power to utilize these same features.

Disadvantages

Appearing at a CDN you can tell there is plenty to get - especially if your website is heavily-trafficked and noticeably slow. But the disadvantages are these CDN servers will charge funds each month.

If your website isn't earning enough right now then it's not a great selection. Be sure that your website or company is profitable enough to invest into greater hosting support.

CDN hosting without much study will be stressful. A webmaster should try to understand use procedures, uploading new assets to the origin server, and how to read traffic analysis for estimating future weekly/monthly bandwidth rates.

[williamnicholas240]

CDN is a network of servers that distribute cached static content from websites to users based on the geographic location of the user

[ashleymiller967]

A CDN is a network of servers that caches content close to where each end user is accessing the internet via a web-enabled device and distributes it around the world from a "origin" server. By dispersing the load geographically over numerous servers, this approach also reduces stress on origin servers.

[florencelouise636]

A content delivery network, also known as a content distribution network, is a network of proxy servers and associated data centres that is geographically spread. The purpose is to distribute the service spatially relative to end customers in order to provide high availability and performance.