Storage on the Edge

Some of the most well-known CDN providers are Akamai, Cloudflare, and Amazon AWS. These companies provide access to their distributed network of servers located throughout the world. In general, CDNs provide 4 essential benefits.

1. Performance – We are basically talking about speed. CDNs take content from your origin servers and store a copy in cache on thousands of servers around the world. This allows users to connect with the closest servers providing them quick access to your content. If those local servers do not have the content, the request is redirected back to your origin server for the requested information. After this request, that content is then cached locally for future requests.

2. Availability – Flash sales, high definition streaming, and other events that could trigger a spike in user requests are often overwhelming to a company’s origin infrastructure. A CDN on the other hand can handle these spikes by distributing the load to as many servers as necessary without any manual intervention. CDNs detect changes in user requests and automatically reroute traffic to the fastest and most efficient servers.

3. Security – Your content is valuable and thus a target for Cyber Crime. DDoS attacks have increased and large companies are not the only target, far more frequently smaller to mid-size companies are attacked. CDNs are specifically designed to handle these attacks and divert them away from your infrastructure and protect your content. CDNs act as a barrier and shield against attacks.

4. Intelligence – Because CDNs monitor and route traffic globally, they can provide a unique set of data and analytics that can be very valuable to your company. CDNs provide information about browsers, connectivity, geolocation, and even specific browsing experiences. This data can be downloaded and analyzed to look for user patterns and trends or to identify issues that users are experiencing.

Data storage is really more than just size on disk. Companies need to understand their user base and determine how to deliver data and content in a reliable and high performing manner. CDNs provide companies of all sizes the ability to extend their reach globally without the overhead of infrastructure and maintenance. The goal should be to always provide a seamless web experience and CDNs are an excellent tool to utilize for accomplishing this end.