With more than 3.9 million users worldwide, the Internet is a great avenue on which businesses can reach millions upon millions of people around the world. But how can you deliver great web performance and amazing user experience despite security threats and poor connections?
The answer lies in the technology of content delivery networks (CDNs).
What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?
A CDN is a network of servers that are linked together to deliver content as quickly, securely, and reliably as possible. These servers are located in data centers all over the world.
CDNs work by caching content – images, videos, HTML pages, and JavaScript files – from your website and storing them in each server in the network. When a user loads the webpage, they receive these files from a server that is geographically closest to them. The closer that a user is to a CDN server, the faster the website content will be delivered to them.
Using a CDN can have a strong impact on your website and services. It will effectively speed up the load time of your website, improve performance, and ensure that all users have the same high-quality experience, no matter where they are in the world. They can also secure your applications and even block data scrappers and other spammers that may hit your server.
Many businesses use CDNs for serving content to users. As more aspects of day-to-day life move online, businesses can use CDNs to accelerate their static and dynamic content, e-commerce transactions, and more.
What is the Difference Between a CDN and a Web Host?
It is important to remember that a CDN is designed to complement traditional web hosting by enhancing the performance of the site that it hosts; it is not a replacement for traditional web hosting. You still need a traditional web host so that there is a site for a CDN to strengthen and improve.
With a traditional web host, you get a server on which you can host your entire website. It delivers 100% of your content to the user, which could slow download times, especially if the user is located on the other side of the world. They would have to wait for the data to be retrieved from where your web server is. Meanwhile, a CDN serves a majority of your website’s static and dynamic content from proxy servers around the globe.
Basically, traditional web hosting refers to only one server. A CDN is a network of servers that distributes your content from a multi-host environment. It helps cache content at the network edge, which improves site performance and reduces hosting bandwidth. This helps to prevent interruptions in service and improves security.
What are the Benefits of Using a CDN?
When you use a CDN, you can reap many benefits, such as:
Analytics
CDNs not only deliver content at a fast pace but also provide important analytical data, such as real-time load statistics. They also optimize capacity per customer, indicate which assets are popular, display active regions, and report viewing details. Businesses can use this data to discover customer trends and their website’s weaknesses and strengths, as well as further optimize the website.
Constant Availability
With a CDN, your website will still be accessible even when your server is down. This is because the servers in the CDN are constantly running and the assets are distributed across many regions. CDN websites are available 24/7, even during power outages, network problems, or hardware issues.
DDoS Protection
With DDoS attacks on the rise, you must enlist extra security to protect your data. CDNs and other cloud services for business were designed to stop an attack before it reaches your data center. This keeps your business’ website safe and sound.
Enables Global Reach
One-third of the world’s population is online. To reach those people, business websites would do well to get a CDN, as it would offer solutions through cloud acceleration with local POPs (Points of Presence). With this global reach, any latency problems that cause slow load times and interrupt online transactions will be eliminated.
Huge Boost in Reliability and Response Times
With a CDN, the delivery of content – especially of high-resolution content such as photos and videos – is more consistent. With a high-performing website, you’ll get high conversion and growing sales. Having a reliable CDN ensures that you have more than optimal load speed and that your online transactions are seamless.
Increase in Site Speed
When you implement a CDN on your website, you’re distributing access to it to proxy servers located around the globe. As a result, all users will experience an increase in site speed and a decrease in load times, no matter where they are in the world.
More Simultaneous Users
Large amounts of traffic can interrupt your website’s normal function; with a CDN, however, you won’t have to worry even if your website traffic spikes because of a viral post, for instance. A CDN can ensure that your network has a high data threshold, which means that a large number of users can access it simultaneously without any delays. No matter how many people are on your website at any given time, it won’t crash.
Saves a Lot of Money
Your business will see noticeable savings with a CDN. A global CDN not only eliminates the need to pay for expensive foreign hosting but also offers a single platform on which you can handle all the operations. You will be able to work across many separate regions. Additionally, since CDNs lessen the amount of data that your origin server must provide through caching and other optimizations. The bandwidth and hosting costs are also cheaper compared to using a traditional hosting provider. In most cases, a CDN will be handling more than 60% of your website’s bandwidth, which, in turn, reduces the load on your origin server.
Does Your Site Need a CDN?
Whether or not you should implement a CDN depends on your company’s needs. If you have a high-traffic website that uses a lot of media such as videos and photos, then a CDN is for you. It will deliver fast performance and enhanced security, among others.
Turn to Business Cloud Deals if you’re thinking of turning to a CDN for your data storage needs. We provide the best deals on business cloud solutions. Get in touch with us today!