Content Delivery Networks: Speeding Up Global Web Experiences
Content Delivery Networks: Speeding Up Global Web Experiences CDNs store copies of your site assets in many locations around the world. This arrangement makes pages load faster and feel smoother for visitors, no matter where they are. A CDN helps with images, CSS, JavaScript, and videos. It also adds resilience during traffic spikes and offers security features such as DDoS protection and TLS termination. How a CDN works When a user requests a resource, the request goes to the nearest edge server. If the resource is cached there, it is sent immediately. If not, the edge server fetches it from the origin server, stores a copy, and serves it to the user. This reduces travel distance, lowers latency, and distributes the load across many servers. The DNS system also helps by steering the user to a nearby Point of Presence (PoP). Cache-control headers tell edges how long to keep a file. Some CDNs support origin pull, where content is brought to the edge only when needed, and then cached. ...