Content Delivery Network: All You Need to Know About CDNetworks
A relatively new term - content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) refers to the network of servers that are distributed geographically but works together to ensure fast delivery of internet contents. The more people shifts to the internet to consume contents and perform varieties of activities, the more important it is to share the load and deliver contents without much loading times.
Often, these networks are referred to as just CDN or CDNetworks. There are also some Mobile CDNs specifically designed to optimize content delivery via wireless and mobile network.
There are several key players in the CDN sector, reducing the physical distance of a user to a content server and speeding up the webpage loading time. Traffic hungry websites like Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and such rely heavily on content delivery networks to distribute their contents. Thanks to its many benefits, the popularity of CDNetworks is growing pretty rapidly.
Key Benefits of Using a CDNetwok
While a content delivery network can benefit just about any website or cloud computing service providers, it’s usefulness varies depending on the needs and the size of a particular internet entity. In general, the benefits of using a content delivery network are:
- Improving the website loading time by using a CDN server closer to the user and some other optimization tools and techniques.
- Reducing the bandwidth cost with the use of cache data and other optimizations.
- Improving website security with features like DDoS mitigation, while also handling heavy traffics and making the contents available to more users.
Key Providers of CDNs
As part of its cloud services, Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a reliable CDN with seamless integration. The traditional market leaders, among others, include Akamai Technologies, Limelight, INAP, Level 3 Communications, Rackspace Technology, Fastly, etc.
