How CDNs can save your website: Speed and security at the highest level

Antonio Piovesan : 18 March 2024 11:05

Let’s talk a bit about CDNs, or Content Delivery Networks, and how they can be real digital lifesavers.

Imagine being in a crowded restaurant. There’s only one waiter running around serving all the customers. Now, if each table had its own dedicated waiter, the service would be much faster, right? Well, CDNs work more or less like that for your website.

When someone visits your site, they usually request information from a central server that could be on the other side of the world. This can slow things down, a bit like that poor lone waiter. CDNs, on the other hand, are like a team of waiters distributed around the world, ready to serve your website’s content from the closest point to the customer. This means that pages load faster, just like food that arrives hot and ready at your table.

DoS/DDoS

But that’s not all. You know those annoying Dos and DDoS attacks that can knock a site off balance? CDNs can help there too. A DDoS attack is like a crowd of people entering the restaurant and demanding to be served immediately, even if they don’t intend to order anything. They saturate the space, and no real customer can get what they want. CDNs can recognize these “fake customers” and prevent them from overloading the site, ensuring that your real visitors can always enjoy their experience without interruptions.

In short, CDNs not only speed up the loading of your web pages but also protect your site from those attacks that could otherwise crash it. It’s like having a team of super waiters who not only serve quickly but also keep the troublemakers away. Fantastic, isn’t it?

Caching

Here are some technical details about CDNs. These networks consist of a series of geographically distributed servers that work together to quickly deliver web content to users based on their geographic location. The heart of a CDN is caching, which temporarily stores copies of content at strategic points to reduce latency.

Each server within the CDN is called an edge server and acts as an access point for users in its area. When a user requests content, the CDN redirects the request to the nearest edge server, thus ensuring rapid response times and reducing the load on the original server.

Technical details

The technical details include:

• Distribution system: manages the copying of content from the original server to the edge servers and keeps it updated.
• Request routing: determines which edge server will serve the user’s request, based on factors such as latency and geographic proximity.
• Reverse proxy caching: improves speed and efficiency by storing user requests to reduce the number of times data must be transmitted from the original server.
• DDoS mitigation: CDNs can distribute traffic among various servers, diluting the effect of DDoS attacks and keeping the site operational even under assault.

Conclusion

In essence, CDNs are an intelligent network that not only accelerates content delivery but also offers robust defense against cyber attacks, ensuring that your site is always accessible and performing.

Antonio Piovesan
He graduated in Computer Engineering in 2002 and CISSP certified since 2023, entered the ICT world as an analyst/full stack developer. He continued his education by attending an executive Master in cybersecurity and data protection at 24ORE Business School. He now deals with cybersecurity governance issues in the large-scale retail sector. He has a strong passion for technology, innovation and cybersecurity, promoting the spread of digital risk awareness. He loves reading books on the history of mathematics and is a fan of science fiction literature and film.