CDN network
11 Mar 2015

Five Continents of CDN

Technology of CDN (Content Delivery Network) is based on a geographic proximity principle largely. Basically, that means that the closer content server is, the faster user will get what he wants. That’s a benefit for both sides – user and content provider. In a fact, this is not the only factor, which effects speed of data exchange. The other important thing for CDN is server’s performance.

The number of routers and gateways on a way between a server and a user has strong influence on a final data delivery. Each time data packets pass through the router or gateway to the next device, a hop occurs. One hop is a portion (section) of path between the initial source and a final destination. Every extra hop on a way increases time of page load and bandwidth costs, which decreases general content availability.

CDN technology offers a solution to solve these problems. Operating Content Delivery Network all data is placed as close to target user as possible. This is achieved by copying and placing data from the main server through CDN locations (PoPs – points of presence). Such system does not simply storing of all data from the main server on PoPs locations, but with method of web cashing it as well allows storing data that is popular only for a local user. As a result, major amount of time on content upload will spend only the first user, due to a long route for original (initial) server. Others will load this content from nearest PoPs, spending less time on it.

As mentioned above, the other important thing for CDN’s availability is server’s performance. Geographically wide Content Delivery Network, apart from a geographic proximity principle, corresponds to a high server’s performance principle. This means the following: even server with a high performance can have only a part of general capacity at every period of time, but when CDN has wide net of locations (PoPs), altogether it will perform much better.

Technology of CDN underlies such services as a high definition live events streaming (QoS – Quality of service), speed load of large files etc. This technology increases the speed of traffic and reduces the net costs at the same time. Alright, we know that CDN can boost many online services, but what is the criteria of picking a proper vendor? The choice first of all should be based on number of locations (PoPs) and geographic proximity to consumers. Certainly attention should be paid to server performance and pricing too.

CDNsun has more than 70 locations (PoPs) worldwide on five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia). This allows us to provide a high quality, competitive and reliable CDN service. Most of PoPs are located in Europe (42 locations) and North America (20 locations). Comparing with other CDN providers, we offer our clients wide range of different locations (PoPs), please see our comparative table with MaxCDN, Amazon and Fastly. The whole list of location is available on our website.