Have you ever wondered, while watching a movie, how can the streaming service have such a high speed even though its server is located in a different country? The answer to that question is, CDN. That’s why we will get to know more information about the benefits of using the CDN.
What Is a CDN?
The CDN, or “Content Delivery Network”, is the backbone of all content types delivered to users around the globe. CDN is a group of servers that are geographically distributed to help bring content closer to users all over the world.
CDN helps overcome the problem of latency in content delivery by utilizing a process called cashing. Data centres around the planet use cashing to temporarily store copies of files and media, and make them accessible in a faster way to browsers via close-by servers near your physical location.
In one way or another, you use CDN during your daily online activities. Whether you are watching a movie, downloading software or even creating a post on social media, the benefits of using a CDN glow in helping you avoid long loading times by bringing the content to a nearby server. Also, CDN enhances the security levels of websites in order to protect them against malicious attacks such as DDoS attacks.
How Does The CDN Work?
To understand how the CDN works, imagine that you are in the UK and would like to watch a Hollywood movie that is hosted by a website whose server is in the USA. If you stream this movie from the USA server, you will experience latency and extended loading time which will drastically affect your experience.
However, a CDN minimizes the distance between users and the server storing the content by storing a cached version of it on servers distributed around several geographical locations. Those locations are called Points of Presence or PoPs.
Benefits Of Using The CDN And Why Your Business Needs It?
Performance
Watching the swirling buffering circle for a few seconds on your browser’s screen can make you feel that reaching this content can take forever. Loading speed is a major aspect to consider while measuring a website’s performance, it’s the difference between a website instantly loading and another one that takes six or seven seconds to load.
However, if the requested content is cached on CDN servers, your ISP will reach one of those servers (or PoPs) to get your requested content without wasting time running the original server. Even if the content you want isn’t pre-saved already, the CDN will use its knowledge and connection to try and get that content and save it for future purposes. All of that will reduce latency and have a magnificent effect on the website’s performance which is one of the main benefits of using a CDN.
Reliability
During times with excessive traffic flow, websites receive several millions of requests per second. That traffic load can cause malfunctions or failure even the powerful servers because the server’s infrastructure has to absorb all the requests and respond to them. However, when CDN is used, the widely distributed servers infrastructure designed using highly reliable architecture can help alleviate those issues.
CDN servers are designed to absorb enormous amounts of requests without failure or malfunction. The various benefits of using a CDN help enhance users’ experience and increase your website’s credibility amongst visitors.
Security
With the continuous growth of high-value data transfer and financial transactions over the internet, attacks like DDoS ( Distributed Denial Of Service ) are taking place more frequently than before. Those attacks can cause severe financial losses to companies and organizations and affect their credibility and reputation amongst their visitors.
That’s why CDN service providers have considered security as a core component in the development of CDNs providing cloud-based solutions. Those techniques mitigate a wide array of attacks against websites which saves time and money.
Saving Costs Of Bandwidth
Every single time a server receives a request, it creates bandwidth costs. However, using CDN can help decrease the cost of data transfer by caching it on the PoPs servers.
Who Uses CDN?
Technically, due to the many benefits of using the CDN, almost everyone is using them. If you are playing an online game, streaming a movie, making a post on social media or even checking your online bank account, you are probably using a CDN. In other words, If your website is intended to serve users around the world then using CDN would make a great option to improve user experience, your website’s performance, and security.
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