Appreciating Relevance of Content Delivery Network for Accelerating Content Distribution
In order to accelerate delivery of content we need to make sure that the source of data is in close proximity of the end user. By minimizing distances between the nang delivery content and the user, website speed can be improved significantly for an enhanced user experience and improved business prospects.
Understanding CDNs (Content Delivery Network)
Content delivery network (CDN) is primarily designed to mitigate latency by bringing content closer to end users. Imagine that you have placed content in servers that are situated in USA and are targeting users from Asia. There will be significant latency on account of multiple hops that may be required for content reach users in Asia. However, if the same content is readily available in servers that are placed in Asia, then the delivery will be much faster.
Content Delivery Network consists of a distributed network of web servers that are aimed at faster delivery of web content thereby enhancing availability and speed of websites. Since the original content is available in the form of copied content throughout the network, end-users are able to access the content from a CDN server that is closest to them. This significantly reduces loads on original server because numbers of users requesting content from a single server is remarkably reduced.
CDN improves optimum utilization of network resources while enhancing user experience to a great extent. CDN operators are approached by media enterprises or eCommerce companies to accelerate delivery of their content to their end users. CDN service providers need to engage services of hosting providers to host CDN servers in their data centers in diverse locations according to presence of end users.
Significant features of CDN services
As mentioned earlier, locations of CDN servers plays a vital role to build highly efficient network that effectively improves availability and distribution of content with reference to targeted audience. Since the basic objective of a Content Delivery Network is instant delivery of requested content, the delivery nodes contain cached content that run one or more delivery applications and are placed close to end users.
Fundamentals purpose of storage nodes is to provision data to delivery nodes in the form of cached content and to protect origin servers by deploying the content in hierarchical model for facilitating tiered caching. Master nodes that store the content are known as origin nodes. Numbers of origin nodes can be increased to for allowing scalable and resilient operations. All components of CDN including routing, monitoring, and management are hosted in control node.
Deployment of CDN nodes is usually executed at multiple locations covering multiple backbones for mitigation of bandwidth costs and enhancing page load times as well as global availability of content. Different forms of CDN architectures can be designed to cater to workloads according to individual requirements.
CDNs can primarily handle three types of content including static content, dynamic content, and streaming content. Static content is produced by using standard programming languages including java, php, or ruby while static content such as CSS, images, and JavaScript is not associated with any change. There is a growing demand for streaming content that includes audio or video files.
Importance of CDNs for enhanced optimization
Contemporary users need to browse content on their mobile devices. Latency is an important factor to be considered for delivering content to mobile devices. Delivery to these devices must be backed by an aggressive strategy for optimization. CDNs help reduce latency for an enhanced user experience.