Let’s talk about CDN. Before we start let’s explain what is a CDN. From Wikipedia we can read:
A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multipledata centers across the Internet. The goal of a CDN is to serve content to end-users with high availability and high performance. CDNs serve a large fraction of the Internet content today, including web objects (text, graphics and scripts), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications (e-commerce, portals), live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, andsocial networks.
Let’s go deeper and check what are the benefits of use a CDN system.
1. Different domains
Browsers limit the number of concurrent connections (file downloads) to a single domain. Most permit four active connections so the fifth download is blocked until one of the previous files has been fully retrieved. You can often see this limit in action when downloading many large files from the same site.
CDN files are hosted on a different domain. In effect, a single CDN permits the browser to download a further four files at the same time.
2. Files may be pre-cached
jQuery is ubiquitous on the web. There’s a high probability that someone visiting your pages has already visited a site using the Google CDN. Therefore, the file has already been cached by your browser and won’t need to be downloaded again.
3. High-capacity infrastructures
You may have great hosting but I bet it doesn’t have the capacity or scalability offered by Google, Microsoft or Yahoo. The better CDNs offer higher availability, lower network latency and lower packet loss.
4. Distributed data centers
If your main web server is based in Dallas, users from Europe or Asia must make a number of trans-continental electronic hops when they access your files. Many CDNs provide localized data centers which are closer to the user and result in faster downloads.
5. Built-in version control
It’s usually possible to link to a specific version of a CSS file or JavaScript library. You can often request the “latest” version if required.
6. Usage analytics
Many commercial CDNs provide file usage reports since they generally charge per byte. Those reports can supplement your own website analytics and, in some cases, may offer a better impression of video views and downloads.
7. Boosts performance and saves money
A CDN can distribute the load, save bandwidth, boost performance and reduce your existing hosting costs — often for free.
CDN SERVISYS
I’ll suggest you one of the following CDN service
– Cloudflare ( free with premium versions)
– Amazon Cloudfront ( free for 12 months )
– MAX CDN ( premium only)
In one of the next posts, we’ll see how to configure CloudFlare with WordPress.
Lascia un commento