As mentioned in the previous article, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a group of geographically distributed servers that collaborate to provide rapid transmission of Internet content. A properly configured CDN can help protect websites from a variety of common malicious attacks. Here are the main features of a CDN.
Latency
How can a CDN speed up website loading times?
Users abandon websites that upload content as the site slows down.
- The nature of a globally distributed CDN means a reduced distance between users and site resources, which can help reduce loading times. Instead of connecting to the source server of a website, the CDN allows users to connect to a data center that is geographically closer. Faster service results from shorter travel times.
- Optimizations in hardware and software, such as efficient load balancing and solid-state hard drives, can help your data reach you faster.
- CDNs can reduce data transfer by reducing file size through techniques such as file size and compression. Smaller files result in faster loading times.
- CDNs can also speed up sites that use TLS/SSL certificates by optimizing connection reuse and enabling TLS false starts.
Reliability and redundancy
How does a CDN ensure that a website is always available?
Hardware failures and traffic spikes, whether caused by malicious attacks or simply increased popularity, can cause a Web server to fail and prevent users from accessing a site or service. A comprehensive CDN has several features that help to reduce downtime:
- Load balancing distributes network traffic evenly across multiple servers, making rapid increases in traffic easier to scale.
- Intelligent failover ensures that service is maintained even if one or more CDN servers fail due to hardware failure; failover can redistribute traffic to other operating servers.
Data security
How does a CDN safeguard data?
A CDN’s information security is an essential component. This can keep a site’s security up to date by using updated TLS/SSL certificates to ensure a high level of authentication, encryption, and integrity. Investigate CDN security issues and what can be done to deliver content safely. Find out more about CDN SSL/TLS security.
Costs of the bandwidth
How does a CDN save money on bandwidth?
Bandwidth is consumed whenever a source server responds to a request. Even if a CDN does not host content and cannot replace actual web hosting, it can assist in caching content on the network perimeter, which improves website performance. Many sites find that traditional hosting services are unable to meet their performance requirements, so they turn to CDNs.
CDNs are a popular choice for relieving the major challenges of traditional web hosting because they use caching to reduce bandwidth for hosting, help prevent service outages, and increase security.
The arimas solution portfolio and consulting services enable us to identify and resolve any network issues. Discover our innovative strategies and let us assist you in reaching your objectives!
