What is a CDN and How Does a Content Delivery Network Work?
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 4:30 am
What is a CDN? Content Delivery Network Explained
A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers installed in different locations around the world to deliver web content across a large geographic area much faster.
In this article, we will learn how a CDN works and answer frequently asked questions.
Let's get started.
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What is a CDN?
CDN, also known as “content delivery network”, provides cameroon phone number data points of presence (PoP) outside of the origin server. This allows websites to better handle traffic by processing user requests faster, providing a better overall experience.
In short, you are using a CDN every time you visit a high-traffic site like Amazon or reach out to your friends on Facebook. Their hosted data centers allow them to deliver that content much faster regardless of the geographic location of individual users or the main website server.
By spreading distribution systems across a large area, websites can reduce bandwidth consumption and page load times, saving precious seconds in the time it takes to handle multiple user requests.
Read also: Top 10 Content Delivery Networks (CDN) for WordPress
What is an origin server?
An origin server is a computer that hosts the original version of your web files. Without a CDN, your site visitors will have to request information and receive the response directly from the primary source of your site.
If every request has to go back to your origin server, your website will increase its workload. Also, the further away the end user is from an origin server, the longer the user will have to wait for a page to load.
This is why using a CDN can help reduce latency as it reduces the number of networks a request and its response need to pass through in reaching its final destination.
A CDN can also protect the origin server from DDoS attacks or other online threats by masking the origin server and proxy requests from visitors, making the primary source virtually invisible.
What is an Edge CDN Server?
An edge server is a computer that can cache content retrieved from an origin server. It is located in one of the points of presence, which are physical data centers around the world.
Edge CDN servers act as connections between separate networks, allowing traffic to flow quickly and efficiently from one location to another.
To reduce the workload on an origin server and decrease the distance between a visitor and a web server, an edge CDN server stores content in strategic locations as close to the visitor as possible.
As a result, visitors experience better performance and faster loading times since they are actually requesting content from a geographically closer server.
That said, your origin servers will also be less likely to experience performance degradation when your site experiences a sudden surge in traffic.
A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers installed in different locations around the world to deliver web content across a large geographic area much faster.
In this article, we will learn how a CDN works and answer frequently asked questions.
Let's get started.
Table of Contents view
What is a CDN?
CDN, also known as “content delivery network”, provides cameroon phone number data points of presence (PoP) outside of the origin server. This allows websites to better handle traffic by processing user requests faster, providing a better overall experience.
In short, you are using a CDN every time you visit a high-traffic site like Amazon or reach out to your friends on Facebook. Their hosted data centers allow them to deliver that content much faster regardless of the geographic location of individual users or the main website server.
By spreading distribution systems across a large area, websites can reduce bandwidth consumption and page load times, saving precious seconds in the time it takes to handle multiple user requests.
Read also: Top 10 Content Delivery Networks (CDN) for WordPress
What is an origin server?
An origin server is a computer that hosts the original version of your web files. Without a CDN, your site visitors will have to request information and receive the response directly from the primary source of your site.
If every request has to go back to your origin server, your website will increase its workload. Also, the further away the end user is from an origin server, the longer the user will have to wait for a page to load.
This is why using a CDN can help reduce latency as it reduces the number of networks a request and its response need to pass through in reaching its final destination.
A CDN can also protect the origin server from DDoS attacks or other online threats by masking the origin server and proxy requests from visitors, making the primary source virtually invisible.
What is an Edge CDN Server?
An edge server is a computer that can cache content retrieved from an origin server. It is located in one of the points of presence, which are physical data centers around the world.
Edge CDN servers act as connections between separate networks, allowing traffic to flow quickly and efficiently from one location to another.
To reduce the workload on an origin server and decrease the distance between a visitor and a web server, an edge CDN server stores content in strategic locations as close to the visitor as possible.
As a result, visitors experience better performance and faster loading times since they are actually requesting content from a geographically closer server.
That said, your origin servers will also be less likely to experience performance degradation when your site experiences a sudden surge in traffic.