Content Delivery Network is famous for large files, medias, and the documents that need to arrive at their destination fast and easy.
What is content delivery Network?
To be short, this is simply delivers your files to the destination. In depth, we have to know why do we need to use them and how can we optimize our delivery using them. To understand these things, we have to make a sneak peek into its architecture.
Simple first. We know a file can send from a server to a client. A server must be qualified with a public IP address and need to up 24/7 to welcome any clients. When the client downloads the file, the server serve the file. DONE.
Let's look a little deeper. If the server has 1Gbps network without any latency and the client has only 100Mbps internet connection. The content will arrive with only 100 Mbps. It is like narrowing with a small pipe from a big pipe. That is normally simple. To do simple math, the server can handle 10 concurrent clients (in reality much more clients) to fulfill their requests.
Let's take another level. Both of the server and the client have the same 1Gbps connection and want to send the file using the full throttle speed of network. The server must fulfill the request in 0.9 ratio due to port suppression. The client can handle more than the server can. The client will not notice the difference but if there is two or more clients connected the same server, the server cannot handle much more. The server must push more data than it can handle means more time it will need to fulfill the request. That will make the clients to attention deficit.
The real problem arises when the server has 1Gbps connection and the client has 10Gbps. The server can fulfill just one tenth of the client bandwidth connection. Nowadays, the connection speed of 10Gbps is really available on any residential network. The file must fulfill with the 10Gbps speed. The server cannot. The client thinks there is some delay on server. Attention deficit. Gone. Bye.
To server the proper way, the CDN is the key to such connection. These content delivery networks have a couple of hundred PoP (point of presence) to the nearest server to the user. When a user request a file, the file is redirected to the nearest server to the client and one or more servers handle to fulfill the request. That will make large file to transfer at the full speed of the client network to reach their destination.
Point of presence are not just important factor of the content delivery networks, they are also another factor that will serve the client faster. They geo-replicate the files and standby on the nearest servers across the world. The storage of large files are pain to normal virtual private servers and the large storage will cost you more if you need to have first class storage system. The CDNs solve these issues. They share the same contents, no server monitoring, management, and extraordinary things. Just upload the file and CDN will handle the rest.
Many supports Amazon S3 compatible object storage and Cloudflare distribution will make some easy steps.
Should I use content delivery network for my blog or newly built website?
It depends. There is no swift army knife for all the solution. If there is just an admin dashboard or very few visiting website, the CDN is an overkill for everybody. This will impose complicated unnecessary architecture overhead to your teams unless handle properly. There is a lot of built in solution to handle the speed delivery without using CDNs. The files, large documents, white papers, and the media should use the content delivery networks.