What is the function of a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

5th Oct 2016

Plus a brief look at a CDC or 'Content Delivery Cloud'

One of the reasons information is so readily accessible on the net and all over the world has a lot to do with content delivery networks. CDN's provision data in such a way that makes it more readily available depending on where you are located, which also creates the ability to service more individuals with the same data. How is this accomplished? By setting up a series of computers or servers that all contain copies of the same data, much higher volumes of traffic are possible to process. Overall performance is also increased with the assistance of a content delivery network. On the technical side of things, the use of a CDN increases bandwidth significantly and protects data integrity as well.

How do content delivery networks fit into the cloud computing model?

In many ways, a content delivery network provides the system by which cloud computing can deliver its services to large numbers of users within a cloud network. Without the ability of a CDN to make information freely available to those in a cloud, data delivery performance would suffer greatly (thereby undermining another purpose of cloud computing, which is supposed to be superior to grid networking in terms of performance capabilities). This brings us to one of the more recent developments in relation to content delivery networks, the content delivery cloud (CDC) (which is essentially an extended form of a content delivery network that's designed to provide scalable access to individual clients for things like virtualization and application / program access across a cloud network). Whereas a traditional CDN simply accesses data and creates copies of that data for random access, a content delivery cloud performs exactly the same operation but with more complex operations and tasks like virtualized hardware. This ultimately gives individual users more direct access to increased performance since their virtualized hardware for example, will be located in much closer proximity to the geographical location.

Why do businesses need to utilize content delivery networks?

A better question to ask might actually be; why wouldn't a business want to utilize a content delivery network? Here are some of the benefits of using a CDN (for businesses):

Cheaper than establishing and maintaining your own servers / data center
It will never be unable to accommodate your visitors; it essentially makes data available 24/7 - 365.
Because data will be stored in multiple locations across the globe, visitors will be able to access the data that's geographically closer to them. This translates directly into increased levels of overall performance.
You are given an almost unlimited amount of bandwidth. No matter how much traffic you receive it will be virtually (or extremely rare) for you to surpass any kind of bandwidth limitation. So a dedicated CDN essentially translates into - no more lost traffic due to bandwidth limitations.

Content delivery network service providers are operating on the same wavelength as cloud computing providers that specialize in IaaS (Information as a service). The IaaS model of service is essentially set up so that a cloud computing vendor only needs to provide the hardware resources needed to populate a cloud computing network. All software and runtime components are at the user's discretion. Content delivery network services operate in a similar fashion (to IaaS providers) in that they are essentially just data centers that make information deployment and storage services available to their users.

We invite you to check out the Cloud Computing Certification Page for more learning opportunities around the management of Cloud Computing environments.