CDN

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. It is a distributed network of servers that delivers web content to users based on their geographic location. The goal of a CDN is to provide fast delivery of content by reducing the physical distance between the server and the user.

CDNs work by storing cached copies of content in multiple data centers around the world. When a user requests content that is part of a CDN, their request gets routed to the data center closest to their location. This helps speed up load times by reducing the round trip time it takes to fetch the content.

For example, if a user in London requests a webpage hosted in New York, without a CDN the content would have to load all the way from the New York server. This can cause slow load times. Instead, their request gets routed through a CDN which has a data center in London. The London data center already has a cached version of the webpage and can deliver it much faster to the user. This provides a better experience.

CDNs are especially useful for delivering large static assets like videos, images, CSS files, and JavaScript files. Popular CDN providers include Akamai, Cloudflare, and Amazon CloudFront. Overall, CDNs improve performance and user experience on websites.