What is a CDN? - Definition & Meaning
Learn what a CDN (Content Delivery Network) is, how edge caching works, and why a CDN is crucial for fast websites. Discover Cloudflare and Vercel Edge.
Definition
A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a distributed network of servers worldwide that serves content closer to end users. By caching files at edge locations, load times are drastically reduced.
Technical explanation
A CDN consists of Points of Presence (PoPs) distributed across the globe. When a user requests content, the request is routed to the nearest edge server via anycast DNS. On a cache hit, content is served directly without loading the origin server. On a cache miss, the edge server fetches content from the origin, caches it, and serves it to the user. Cache-control headers (max-age, s-maxage, stale-while-revalidate) determine caching behavior. Modern CDNs like Cloudflare and Vercel Edge offer edge computing beyond static caching: serverless functions running at the edge for dynamic content with low latency. Cloudflare Workers and Vercel Edge Functions enable request/response transformations, A/B testing, and geolocation-based routing at the edge. Image optimization, Brotli/gzip compression, and HTTP/3 support are standard features. DDoS protection is built into major CDN providers. Cache purging and cache tags provide granular control over cache invalidation.
How MG Software applies this
At MG Software, we deploy all web applications through Vercel, which automatically provides a global CDN network. Static assets, images, and pages are cached worldwide. For clients with an international audience, we configure Cloudflare as an additional CDN layer for maximum performance and DDoS protection.
Practical examples
- A Dutch e-commerce store serving product images to customers in Asia via Cloudflare CDN, reducing load times from 3 seconds to 200 milliseconds.
- A SaaS application using Vercel Edge Functions to automatically redirect users to the correct language version based on their geographic location.
- A media website using cache-control headers and stale-while-revalidate to ensure articles load instantly while updates are processed in the background.
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Frequently asked questions
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