There are still too many Websites which are not utilizing CDN, a content delivery network which helps with content delivery speed (page load time).
Content can be in the form of:
- Media file
- Text, Images, Documents
- Scripts
- Software & Applications
- Live streaming media
- Etc.
What exactly is CDN? A content delivery network (CDN), or sometimes referred to as a content distribution network, is a distributed network of proxy servers.
A slightly less technical explanation: with a CDN you have multiple servers distributed across different geographical locations to deliver content faster to end-users. How does CDN do this? End users are accessing a copy of the data (content) nearest to them, rather than accessing the same central server. For example, if an end user is accessing your Website from Australia, they are served a local copy from an Australian server, which is quicker than having everyone in the world always connecting to the same server in the US or some other country.
In summary, CDN provides three main benefits:
- Faster delivery / improved page load times (e.g. content is served from the server closest to the end user)
- Superior content availability (e.g. more servers across more countries)
- Can reduce bandwidth costs (e.g. websites with heavy multimedia)
If you are not a developer or on an infrastructure team, this is all you will probably ever need to know about CDN, so congratulations on making it this far. Now, if we convinced you that CDN is worth exploring, here are some well-known companies that provide CDN services.
