What is a CDN (Content Delivery Network)?
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers distributed worldwide that delivers content to users based on their geographic location.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a CDN service called Amazon CloudFront. This service uses a network of Edge locations to deliver content to users with low latency and high transfer speeds.
What is an Edge location point of presence (POP)?
An Edge location is a point of presence (POP) in the AWS global network that caches and delivers content to users. Edge locations are strategically placed in cities around the world to provide low latency and high transfer speeds to users.
When a user requests content delivered through CloudFront, the request is routed to the Edge location closest to the user. This Edge location then checks its cache to see if the requested content is already stored. If it is, the content is delivered to the user from the cache, reducing the time it takes for it to be delivered. If the content is not in the cache, it is fetched from the origin server and stored in the cache for future requests.
CloudFront allows for easy integration with other AWS services such as S3, EC2, and Elastic Load Balancing. This allows you to use CloudFront to deliver a wide variety of content, including web pages, images, videos, and streaming media. With CloudFront, you can also use features like custom SSL certificates, custom error pages, and geolocation-based routing.
The benefits of CloudFront
One of the benefits of using CloudFront is that it can help reduce the load on your origin servers. Much of the content will be delivered from the Edge locations rather than from your origin servers. This can help reduce the costs associated with running your own servers and improve the performance of your application.
In summary, CloudFront is a content delivery network provided by AWS that leverages a network of Edge locations to deliver content with low latency and high transfer speeds. It can be used to deliver a wide variety of content and is integrated with other AWS services. Edge locations are strategically placed and cache the content to reduce load on origin servers, resulting in lower costs and better application performance. With features like custom SSL, custom error pages, and geolocation-based routing, it allows for more flexibility and control over content delivery.
