Introduction to a CDN

Proposed solution

The solution to all the problems discussed in the previous lesson is the content delivery network (CDN). A CDN is a group of geographically distributed proxy servers. A proxy server is an intermediate server between a client and the origin server. The proxy servers are placed on the network edgeThe network edge is the zone where a device or local network interfaces with the Internet.. As the network edge is close to the end users, the placement of proxy servers helps quickly deliver the content to the end users by reducing latency and saving bandwidth. A CDN has added intelligence on top of being a simple proxy server.

We can bring data close to the user by placing a small data center near the user and storing copies of the data there. CDN mainly stores two types of data: staticThis type of data doesn’t change frequently and remains on the servers for a long period. and dynamicThis type of data changes most frequently—for example, newsletters, ads, live videos, and so on.. A CDN primarily targets propagation delay by bringing the data closer to its users. CDN providers make the extra effort to have sufficient bandwidth available through the path and bring data closer to the users (possibly within their ISP). They also try to reduce transmission and queuing delays because the ISP presumably has more bandwidth available within the autonomous system.

Let’s look at the different ways CDN solves the discussed problems:

• High latency: CDN brings the content closer to end users. Therefore, it reduces the physical distance and latency.
• Data-intensive applications: Since the path to the data includes only the ISP and the nearby CDN components, there’s no issue in serving a large number of users through a few CDN components in a specific area. As shown below, the origin data center will have to provide the data to local CDN components only once, whereas local CDN components can provide data to different users individually. No user will have to download their own copy of data from the origin servers.

Note: Various streaming protocols are used to deliver dynamic content by the CDN providers. For example, CDNsun uses the Real-time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Real-time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), and many more to deliver dynamic content.

• Scarcity of data center resources: A CDN is used to serve popular content. Due to this reason, most of the traffic is handled at the CDN instead of the origin servers. So, different local or distributed CDN components share the load on origin servers.