The cloud refers to the telecommuting servers on the internet that manages and handles all big data and applications. It is internet-based computing where shared resources and information are given to computers on demand like a public utility. Cloud is surrounded by different models like IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Cloud CDN is a much broader concept of cloud computing.
What is Cloud CDN?
Cloud CDN(Content Delivery Network) is a specialized service in cloud computing that focuses on optimizing the delivery of content to users. It is optimized for serving in web assets like dynamic HTML files, CSS, and JavaScript.
For example, suppose your website is based in Canada. If someone from the United States (US) accesses your site, the CDN serves that user from an edge server in the US, closer to the user, instead of from your Canada-based origin server for the web page. A CDN contains a network of geographically distributed servers placed in different locations across the world. The servers used by them are called edge servers which store cached copies of static content like images etc. CDN should be used whenever HTTP traffic is served. CDN is a content delivery network that helps in accelerating web and video content delivery using Google’s Global Edge.
How Does Cloud CDN Work?
- Suppose we need the user to make a request to someone’s website therefore the request is routed to the nearest Google Edge node thereby making the flow of traffic easier and faster.
- From there the request is routed to the backend or the origin of the global HTTPS Load Balancer.
- The cloud CDN is enabled, the content is directly served to the cache which helps in managing the cacheable content that helps to serve the content faster in the future.
- Cloud CDN caches this content on its own when we use the recommended “cache mode” to cache all static content. If more control is needed, one can direct Cloud CDN by setting HTTP headers on the responses.
- On receiving a request by Cloud CDN it looks for the cached content using a cache key. This is typically the URI, but it can customize the cache key to remove protocols, etc.
- Cloud CDN attempts to get the content from a closed cache. If the nearby cache has content, it sends it to the first cache by using cache-to-cache fill. Otherwise, the request is sent to the origin server.
- The maximum lifetime of the object in a cache is defined by the TTLs set by the cache directives for each HTTP response or cache mode.
Advantages of Cloud CDN
- Potential cost saving: Cloud CDNs help in reducing the amount of data transferred from the original server resulting in potential cost savings on data transfer fees especially with high media content.
- Latency: Cloud CDNs have a fast response and a low latency rate due to the presence of edge servers and caching.
- Diminished server load: Cloud CDNs reduce the load on the original server and help with the content delivery thereby helping with the dynamic content.
- Performance Optimization: This reduced load on the original server helps in load balancing.
- Strict security: The Cloud CDNs have strong security tools such as DDoS protection that helps the websites and applications from various cyber and malicious attacks and provides security to the users.
Disadvantages of Cloud CDN
- Complications in the configuration: Cloud CDNs are very complex and often lead to mismanagement and show unexpected behavior and low-performance rate.
- Less domination over edge server locations: Cloud CDNs have limited control over the precise location of the server. This is the biggest disadvantage if your target audience resides on areas where CDN’s edge servers are not optimally located.
- Single Point of Failure: CDNs are designed to provide high availability but they introduce an additional layer of complexity and a potential single point of failure. CDN Provider dependency – On cloud CDN, you become dependent on the CDN provider’s infrastructure. If the provider experiences technical issues, it can affect the performance and availability of your content delivery.
Benefits of using cloud CDN
- Security against cyber-attacks: CDNs are huge saviors when it comes to defending against both denial-of-serve (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to absorb large quantities of junk network traffic.
- Improvement in SEO: CDNs can have a positive impact on search engine optimization (SEO). Since faster page load times to a better user experience, search engines tend to rank websites with faster loading speeds higher in search results.
- Better performance of CDNs: Using a CDN reduces load times by 50%. This is done by reducing file sizes and optimizing servers to react faster to the requests of users.
- Increase in reliability: Servers go down and networks get overly congested and the end result is that connections get disrupted. CDNs allow all web applications to continue operating even during these tough times.
Why Use Cloud CDN?
- Reduce service cost for regularly accessed content by automatically caching static content.
- Helps to improve the performance by distributing the traffic between the edge servers.
- Deliver optimized resources corresponding to the user agent.
How To Monitor Cloud CDN Performance?
- Setting up Monitoring Tools: Utilizing monitoring tools to collect data and analyze CDN performance. Many CDN providers offer built-in monitoring capabilities, while third-party monitoring tools can also be used.
- Tracking Error Rates and HTTP Status Codes: Monitor the occurrence of errors and HTTP status codes returned by the CDN.
- Analyzing and Optimization: Regularly reviewing the collected data and analyzing performance trends. Identify areas for improvement, such as optimizing cache settings, and adjusting content.
- Regularly Reviewing CDN Reports: Taking advantage of reporting features provided by your CDN provider. These reports offer detailed information on CDN usage, and bandwidth consumption.
How To Troubleshoot Cloud CDN Issues?
There are several steps we can take troubleshooting cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) issues to solve the problems. Here’s a general troubleshooting process we can follow:
- Verification of CDN Configuration: Double-checking our CDN configuration helps us to ensure it’s correctly set up. Confirm that our DNS settings are pointing to the CDN and that the necessary DNS records are properly configured.
- Test Connectivity of servers: Use various network tools, such as traceroute to check the connectivity between the origin server and the CDN edge servers.
- Checking Origin Server’s Health: Verifying the health and availability of your origin server. If the origin server is experiencing issues or is overloaded, it can impact the CDN’s ability to fetch content. It must be checked that the origin server is working correctly.
- Reaching out to CDN Support: If we’ve exhausted our troubleshooting efforts and are unable to resolve the issues, reach out to your CDN provider’s support team. we must provide them with detailed information about the problem, including error messages and other actions we’ve already taken.
How To Create Cloud CDN Distribution?
1. Creating a Cloud Storage bucket to store your content.
2. Enable the required services.
3. Creating an Edge Cache Origin resource to connect Media CDN to your bucket.
4. Creating an Edge Cache Service resource to configure request routing and caching for content in the origin.
5. Test whether a response is being cached.
How To Configure Your Original Server for Cloud CDN?
- The original server consists of main project files(CSS, HTML). Whenever the user requests any site cloud DNS(Domain Name System) will redirect to the cloud CDN(content delivery network ) first.
- If the files are cached in the CDN, they will be distributed right away else if there is a cache miss Cloud CDN requests the original server for the required resources.
- Subsequent request from any IP is served by sending cached versions of files.
How To Enable Cloud CDN for Your Website or Application?
Here we have used the Pico CSS website to show how to enable the cloud CDN in it. Follow the steps below as mentioned.
- Create an HTML file with an HTML5 template.
- Link the Pico CSS CDN from the official documentation.
- Now load the page in a browser and open the Networks tab.
- You can see the pico.min.css file being loaded and applied in the site in spite of having no css file in the project structure.
- This is how CDN streamlines the process of integrating technologies without managing the files locally and are served per demand.
This is how we can integrate cloud CDN to your project. There are various other ways by which cloud CDN can be integrated but this is the most flexible and efficient way of integrating CDN to our projects.