Okay, we all know it was a data error that caused the statistics on the health benefits of spinach to be greatly exagerated. Content Delivery Networks on the other hand are bringing Popeye like speed and agility to small and medium sized businesses like never before.
As your website becomes a larger part of your business and you extend you’re company’s reach globally, seamless, rapid delivery of your content becomes more and more important. Responsive design, complex graphics and streaming content are all becoming more prevalent as companies compete for viewers and strive to provide a unique and memorable experience for visitors.
As the cloud has grown, hosting companies have worked to develop efficient delivery systems for their clients. Today, more providers are rolling out a content delivery networkto address these concerns.
Let’s take a look at how you can improve your site’s performance be utilizing a content delivery network to speed up load times without using extra bandwidth.
What is a Content Delivery Network?
A CDN is an interconnected system of cache servers that use geographical proximity data as criteria for delivering content. The cloud and virtualization allow host providers to spread multiple copies of content across a strategically spreadout network ofservers.
A large CDN can have literally thousands of servers distributed around the globe. This makes it possible for a host provider to send and load duplicate content on numerous servers to satisfy multiple requests from client devices efficiently and reliably.
A CDN overcomes these twin issues of limited bandwidth and sudden spikes by in essence spreading the demand strategically among servers so as to not overwhelm any one server with requests. A content delivery network is especially suited for uninterrupted delivery of streaming content including audio, video and IPTV. Host providers may also employ CDNs to deliver static or dynamic web sites and pages.
How Does a CDN Work?
CDN management software determines the proximity of the request for content and then sends the request to the server that is nearest to the geographic location of the request. It does this by copying and storing the content at dispersed locations, caching the contents of the page.
When a visitor requests content that is part of a CDN the originating server redirects the request to the server that is geographicallyclosest to the user making the request. The CDN will also communicate with the originating server to deliver any content that is not cached remotely.The process is transparent to the user.
Today as we come to rely on the web for more aspects of our daily lives, companies are using content delivery networks to accelerate static and dynamic content, mobile access, ecommerce transactions, video, voice, gaming and more.It kind of like Popeye eating his spinach… when Popeye gets what he needs everything he does gets better, faster and stronger! A CDN will make your website perform like Popeye on spinach, better, faster, and stronger! It’s a wise business decision.