The TOFFEE Project
HOMEDOCUMENTATIONUPDATESVIDEOSRESEARCHDOWNLOADSPONSORSCONTACT


RESEARCH 》 Advantages of CDN - Content Delivery Networks or Content Distribution Networks

If you are new to CDN Technology, you can read the Introduction of CDN (Content Delivery Networks or Content Distribution Networks) over HERE.

Speed (page or content) Download: One of the primary and obvious advantages of CDN Networks is the reduction of the page load or download time. When you access a website without CDN, there would be enough load on the primary webserver, also there are limitations with respect to distance at which it is located versus the location of the end-user accessing it.
CDN content delivery Speed

So a CDN served website will be much much faster than the same website without CDN. You can see a huge difference of 30-70% reduction in the overall website loading time.

Location of the CDN Caching Nodes: In most cases this improvement happens so much so, that the end users feels as if the page getting loaded instantaneously. So the primary reason for it is that, in many cases sometimes the ISP you get Internet may have these CDN Caching nodes too. Sometimes the CDN Service providers will pay the money for that, and sometimes the ISP firms keeps them for free of cost, since in both cases it is going to improve his customers Internet experience. Also with a CDN Caching node, the ISP will make huge bandwidth savings with respect to his backbone Internet infrastructure.

Reduction in Routed Network Hops – No more long distance Routing Bottlenecks: In any case since these CDN Nodes are mostly situated within the same ISP Network(s), the number of hops are greatly reduced, hence overcoming the basic bottlenecks of long distance routing !

Load Sharing: Like Scalability factor, everyday load-sharing for large websites are addressed always by any CDN Network services. Since there are large number of dynamic CDN Nodes are deployed across the Internet spread across geographically, often when there is a case if a specific CDN Node (or few Nodes) are congested or addressing huge load of traffic/requests at a specific moment of time, then the upcoming new page requests can be served via other CDN Nodes which are less occupied. Any sudden surges in website hits, (due to any live events such as Sports, or Music/Pop concerts) are better address always by CDN Networks. The CDN Nodes usually handle dynamic load sharing.
CDN networks Load Sharing

Redundancy and High Availability: Redundant and high-availability are the other main added advantage of CDN services. If there is a failure of one CDN Node, then the other nodes offer immediate high-availability backup mode operation. The entire CDN Infrastructure is redundant and so the redundancy of the content availability and eventually the up time of the targeted website.

High-Availability and Redundancy per CDN Node and to the whole CDN Network Infrastructure: In most cases per CDN Node location, the CDN Service vendor may offer redundant caching servers, to offer high-availability in each single CDN Node point, as well as redundancy and high-availability of the entire Distributed CDN Network.
CDN high availability

Scalability: Scalability is one of the most important requirement for any large and most commonly used websites. When the website is new or the company is new, there may be less number of hits per day, but eventually once it gets more and more popular, and it gets more and more users, then the main challenge is to address the scalability factor. Scalability is often a requirement where infrastructure team needs to address progressive way, in the sense upscale the infrastructure as the need arises every quarter, or half yearly or annually. Hence it is one of the expensive decisions a company need to take care of and address it when there is a demand for now or in the near future.
CDN Scalability

Here are some of the few web services and web portals which always need to look after the scalability factor as the number of users or customer visits increases time to time:

  • Social Networks
  • News Websites
  • Portals – Job Portals, Dating Portals, etc.
  • Online Video services
  • Streaming services
  • Gaming Networks
  • Blogging and Micro blogging websites
  • Online Analytics – stock market analysis, other business analysis, etc.
  • Web Email services
  • AD Networks
  • Online Reservation – Flight tickets, Rail and bus services
  • Live Events – Concerts, Sports, Political Speeches, etc.

Application Specific Acceleration and Content Specific Acceleration: Sometimes there can be dedicated or hybrid CDN Networks built to address specific application content delivery. In such a case for example to deliver videos there can be a different dedicated type of CDN Node. And to deliver audio and other streaming content there can be another type of dedicated CDN Node and so on. So Application Specific Acceleration and content delivery specific to application, such as media, flash videos, streaming songs, online live TV, music servers, on-demand media services and so on is always possible and yet another main advantage of CDN Networks.
CDN Application Acceleration

Security: One of the biggest advantages of CDN services is also the ability to provide a secure platform. Since often the times the website is vulnerable for any attacks, sometimes if the CDN nodes are more secure and more managed, then it can also offer/serve as a highly secure platform. Many times often these CDN nodes are generic nodes, and they share the same hardware across various other websites which they are providing CDN service. Hence by default these nodes are quite secure by themselves. So this differentiates the level of security which a hosting server or the source/origin web-server can offer, and a CDN Network hosts can offer. Hence there are cases that these CDN nodes also logs if there are any attacks on the same. This gives an immediate platform to then and there to monitor the same. With hosting only usually we do not get to have a chance to get these extensive analytics. This is also one of the advantages of a CDN service.



Suggested Topics:


Generic CDN


Building my own CDN

💎 TOFFEE-MOCHA new bootable ISO: Download
💎 TOFFEE Data-Center Big picture and Overview: Download PDF


Recommended Topics:

TOFFEE-DataCenter WAN Optimization - Google Hangouts Demo and VOIP Optimization ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

Detect and Monitor Failing Harddrive in Linux - My Seagate 500GB HDD Died ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
My 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM hard-drive suddenly started making mild clicking noise. I found this happening since morning. I was suspicious that something wrong in this drive and when I opened the Linux Disks app, I can find the cause of this issue. The disk is increasingly getting read errors. Besides I can see various other parameters such as Power-On Hours, Temperature, Head flying hours, etc.

Introducing TOFFEE-DataCenter ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
TOFFEE TOFFEE Data-Center is specifically meant for Data Center, Cluster Computing, HPC applications. TOFFEE is built in Linux Kernel core. This makes it inflexible to adapt according to the hardware configuration. It does sequential packet processing and does not scale up well in large multi-core CPU based systems (such as Intel Xeon servers, Core i7 Extreme Desktop systems,etc). Apart from this since it is kernel based, if there is an issue in kernel, it may crash entire system. This becomes a challenge for any carrier grade equipment (CGE) hardware build.

My Lab HDD and SSD logs for research ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

TOFFEE-Mocha-1.0.32-1-x86_64 and TOFFEE-Mocha-1.0.32-1-i386 Code Release ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
This is my first TOFFEE-Mocha combined x86-64 and i386 (Intel x86 64-bit and 32-bit) code release.

TOFFEE DataCenter WAN Optimization - Google Hangouts demo and VOIP Optimization ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
TOFFEE DataCenter WAN Optimization - Google Hangouts demo and VOIP Optimization

Watch on Youtube - [889//1] 280 WAN Optimization - Animated demo of Packet Optimization in TOFFEE-DataCenter ↗


Demo TOFFEE_DataCenter WAN Optimization VM (in VirtualBox) Test Setup ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
Demo TOFFEE_DataCenter WAN Optimization VM (in VirtualBox) Test Setup

The TOFFEE Project :: TOFFEE :: WAN Optimization ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
TOFFEE is an open-source WAN Optimization (Network Performance Optimization) software which can be used to optimize your critical networks.

iPerf Network Optimization - WAN Optimization Demo ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021

TOFFEE-Butterscotch Bandwidth saver software development - Update: 17-Nov-2016 ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
Here is my second software development update of TOFFEE-Butterscotch. In the previous update (28-Oct-2016) I discussed about the Alerts, etc. Whereas in my first TOFFEE-Butterscotch news update I have introduced about TOFFEE-Butterscotch research, project specifications, use-cases, etc.



Featured Educational Video:
Watch on Youtube - [171//1] 169 Q&A - Add additional HardDrive or storage space in Linux VirtualBox VM ↗

TOFFEE (and TOFFEE-DataCenter) deployment with VPN devices ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
In case if you need to deploy TOFFEE along with your existing VPN devices you can deploy the same as shown below. This will allow your VPN devices to encrypt your TOFFEE WAN Optimized network data. NOTE: Make sure about the VPN deployment topology done in the right order. Else TOFFEE (LAN side) may get VPN encrypted packets which may not be possible (and or difficult) to further optimize. Hence always make sure to deploy them in a topology suggested below so that TOFFEE devices are out of VPN tunnel.

The TOFFEE Project :: TOFFEE-Butterscotch :: Save and Optimize your Internet/WAN bandwidth ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
TOFFEE-Butterscotch is an open-source software which can be used to save and optimize your Internet/WAN bandwidth. Unlike TOFFEE (and TOFFEE-DataCenter) TOFFEE-Butterscotch is a non peer-to-peer (and asymmetric) network optimization solution. This makes TOFFEE-Butterscotch an ideal tool for all Home and SOHO users.

DIY TOFFEE WAN Optimization Device with Intel Celeron Mini PC ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
Here is a step-by-step DIY to build your own Intel based Mini PC WAN Optimization Device with TOFFEE. I chose this below Intel Celeron Mini PC since it is fan-less aluminium case and as well it has 2 dedicated inbuilt Gigabit Ethernet ports. You can use one for LAN Network and one for WAN Network.

Building my own CDN - Finally Completed - Update: 17-Dec-2017 ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021
Today I finally completed building my own private CDN. As I discussed so far in my earlier topics (Building my own CDN), I want to custom build the same step-by-step from scratch. And I don't want to for now use/buy third-party CDN subscriptions from Akamai, CloudFlare, Limelight, etc as I discussed earlier.




Setting up a WAN Emulator within VirtualBox ↗
Saturday' 13-Mar-2021



Research :: Optimization of network data (WAN Optimization) at various levels:
Network File level network data WAN Optimization


Learn Linux Systems Software and Kernel Programming:
Linux, Kernel, Networking and Systems-Software online classes [CDN]


Hardware Compression and Decompression Accelerator Cards:
TOFFEE Architecture with Compression and Decompression Accelerator Card [CDN]


TOFFEE-DataCenter on a Dell Server - Intel Xeon E5645 CPU:
TOFFEE-DataCenter screenshots on a Dual CPU - Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5645 @ 2.40GHz - Dell Server