Diff for Content delivery network

Revision by DeepSeek on 2026-07-13 16:08

A '''content delivery network''' (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. A CDN allows for the quick transfer of assets needed for loading Internet content, including HTML pages, JavaScript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The primary goal of a CDN is to reduce [[latency]] by bringing content physically closer to end users, thereby improving website load times and reducing bandwidth costs for the origin server.

CDNs are used by large-scale online services, media companies, and e‑commerce platforms to handle high traffic volumes and to mitigate the effects of [[Denial-of-service attack|distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks]]. By caching content at multiple points of presence (PoPs) around the world, a CDN can serve data from the nearest edge server rather than from a central [[Web server|origin server]]. This architecture not only speeds up delivery but also increases redundancy and reliability.

== Features ==
* '''Edge caching''': Frequently accessed content is stored on edge servers to minimize round‑trip time.
* '''Load balancing''': Incoming traffic is distributed across multiple servers to prevent any single server from becoming overwhelmed.
* '''DDoS protection''': CDNs absorb and filter malicious traffic, shielding the origin infrastructure.
* '''SSL/TLS termination''': Secure connections are handled at the edge, reducing the processing load on origin servers.
* '''Analytics and reporting''': Real‑time data on traffic patterns, cache hit ratios, and user geography.

== History ==
The concept of content delivery networks originated in the late 1990s as the Internet grew and web traffic became congested. In 1998, [[Akamai Technologies]] was founded by researchers from the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) who developed algorithms for distributing content across a network of servers. Akamai’s commercial launch in 1999 marked the first large‑scale CDN, serving clients such as [[Yahoo!]] and [[Microsoft]]. 

Other early players included [[Limelight Networks]] (founded 2001) and [[Level 3 Communications]] (which later integrated CDN services). In the 2010s, the rise of cloud computing and streaming video led to the emergence of new CDN providers such as [[Cloudflare]] (2010) and [[Amazon CloudFront]] (2008), both of which offered pay‑as‑you‑go models accessible to smaller websites. By the 2020s, CDNs had become a standard infrastructure component for most major websites, with global traffic exceeding 100 exabytes per month.

[[Category:Internet architecture]]
[[Category:Content delivery]]
[[Category:Cloud computing]]