Features of a truly good CDN

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CDN (content delivery networks) have appeared several years ago, and this technology is constantly being improved. Therefore, you should keep tabs on the latest versions of CDNs and know which networks are truly worth trying. Find out what are the features of advanced and reliable content delivery network solutions.

Secure POPs located near your customers

Some companies partner with multiple service providers which allows them to offer extended CDNs with vast coverage that feature a huge network of strategically located servers. It means that the round trip time (RTT) for your content gets much shorter, because it will be closer to your visitors. Besides, some CDN services automatically minify user’s files and compress them making sure that the most popular files are prioritized and sent directly to visitors’ browsers.

Top-notch security

Decent providers limit the exposure of users’ files to third parties around the globe and help to avoid vulnerability. They also ensure that your website assets are present across multiple points of presence. They will also provide your infrastructure with the full spectrum of security services and products: Bot & API Protection, DDoS Protection and Web Application Firewall to establish sufficient protection at all layers of your defense.

Advanced caching and purging of your content

Don’t be surprised: the best CDN providers can cache even ever-changing content, e.g. what was considered to be uncacheable before. For example, now you can cache APIs due to such features as instant purge and soft purge, and dynamic site acceleration. Thanks to that, users will enjoy all they expect: perfect responsiveness, quick loading time, uninterruptible access to the recent information. Your content will be purged intelligently and fast, and you may always control what and when should be purged.

Another great feature is client-side caching that promotes instant content loading and excellent user experience. Advanced algorithms are used for dynamic content caching, so it’s always up-to-date. To top it all off, users can generate their own caching rules and adjust caching per URL and kinds of cached resources. Besides, the user can control such options as:

  • disabling of caching;
  • only static or static + dynamic caching;
  • aggressive caching, etc.;
  • purging of cache;
  • purging of specific resources;
  • custom rules of caching.

The content stays cached on the background for the next visitors, and the user is provided with a dashboard that shows valuable statistics and effects of caching.

HTTP/2 Support

HTTP/2 often comes already with support of CDN services and now is considered to be the standard for the most modern browsers. Its advantages are:

  1. Concurrency and multiplexing. Many requests can be sent in instant succession via the same TCP connection, and the order of responses can be different. Therefore, no multiple connections between the server and the client are required.
  2. Server push. The server can transfer the assets that haven’t been requested yet.
  3. Stream priority. The user can specify which of the resources are more important.
  4. Header compression (the size of HTTP header is reduced greatly).

General features of decent CDNs

With a perfect CDN service in place, websites can boost their speed by 50% and require up to 70% less resources and bandwidth. It’s possible with a set of several built-in features:

  • dynamic caching based on machine learning;
  • Tier 1 peered system for great coverage;
  • various cache control options;
  • instant cache purging;
  • top-notch security features and constant availability.

With a CDN solution from SpaceCDN you will have fully-fledged control over how your content served, and may watch performance metrics in real time. With such network, you may have a lot of RAM and SSD storage at your disposal. No matter where your customers are, you will always be able to reach them. With advanced CDN networks you may also accelerate your mobile and web applications for optimal user experience.

Vadim Kolchev

52 publications

Vadim has graduated from Moscow Institute of Entrepreneurship and Law as finance and credit specialist. Prior to starting to work in hosting business directly, he occupied various roles in several companies, including but not limited to banking sphere and sports. As of 2015 he works for INXY Holding, with SpaceCDN being a vital part of the hosting branch of its business. Being tech enthusiast, he has started writing articles about dedicated servers, CDN, storage solutions and other hosting services long ago, and since then accumulated a lot of experience and knowledge in the field. Building hosting sales and support departments from scratch has added even more experience and knowledge and allowed to see the business from the inside and build required expertise. Now Vadim is CPO and COO of a successful hosting business. Having several important interviews and publications at platforms such as Hosting Journalist and Forbes, he continues to share knowledge about this branch of technology that has become not only his job but also a passion.

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