The Low-Down On Content Delivery Network

A CDN or Content Delivery Network is considered by many to be the backbone of the internet. Every single time any of us is on the net, we are interacting with a CDN – whether we are shopping, reading the news, or even just looking at social media feeds.

CDN is also called Content Distribution Network. It is basically a network of cache servers that hold content in various geographical locations to control the issue of latency. Latency means the time taken from the moment a user request for a page to load to when the content actually appear on the screen. Most times, this delay is inordinately long. This is due to the geographical distance between the user and the website’s hosting server.

And here comes the Content Delivery Network whose aim is to reduce latency. It does so by storing a cached version of the content in several locations, which are known as PoPs (Points of Presence). A huge CDN would usually have thousands of servers all around the globe to serve users requesting for the same website content.

CDNs are serving over half of the traffic nowadays, and the number is growing upwards steadily.

Commercial CDNs came into existence in the 90s. They went through many phases of evolution and change before finally turning into the strong delivery platforms of today. Backed by the latest communication innovations, they are a mass-market technology that’s being adopted by more and more companies on a worldwide scale.

CDN services, like Go4Hosting, are great for websites that serve international traffic. Not only do they help in speeding up the delivery of the content to the end user, they also take care of the surges in traffic. However, if a user has localized, domestic traffic, it wouldn’t make sense for them to invest in Cloud CDN services. And if they do persist in using them, in most instances, the website performance actually worsens since there is another unnecessary connection point.

CDNs can help in:

1. Enhancing the loading speed of the page

2. Securing application

3. Reducing the consumption of bandwidth

4. Blocking scrapers and scammers

5. Protecting the site from DDoS attacks

6. Ensuring load balance between multiple servers

CDN usage is popular among organizations of various sectors, such as online gaming, ecommerce, mobile, media and entertainment, advertising, and many others. They are great for B2B interactions.