Content delivery network

A geographically distributed system of servers that delivers web content from locations closer to users, reducing latency and load on origin servers.

Edge computing: A computing model that processes data near the devices or users that produce or consume it. CDNs extend this proximity principle by serving cached content from edge locations.
Content delivery network video streaming: The use of distributed delivery infrastructure to transmit video efficiently to viewers. Video streaming relies on nearby servers to reduce buffering and absorb audience surges.
Domain Name System: The hierarchical system that translates domain names into information such as IP addresses. DNS can direct users toward CDN locations, but it does not itself deliver cached content.
Latency: The delay between an action and its observable response in a system. Serving content from a nearby edge location can reduce network round-trip delay.
Akamai Technologies: A company that provides content delivery, cloud, and cybersecurity services. Akamai commercialized early CDN technology to address web congestion and slow page loads.
Web cache: A temporary store of web responses that can satisfy later requests without contacting the original server. A CDN's edge servers commonly cache responses to avoid repeated origin fetches.
HTTP Live Streaming: An adaptive bitrate streaming protocol that delivers media as a sequence of HTTP segments. CDNs distribute its segments from edge caches close to viewers.
Load balancing: The distribution of workloads or requests across multiple computing resources. Load balancing spreads demand among servers; a CDN also distributes content geographically.
Internet exchange point: A physical location where networks connect to exchange internet traffic directly. CDN servers often connect at exchange points to shorten traffic paths between networks.
Internet traffic: The data transmitted across interconnected networks as users and services communicate. The growth and concentration of internet traffic created demand for distributed delivery.

Linked from 40 pages