Today’s enterprises are increasingly realizing the value of content delivery networks (CDN). Streaming sites, news publications, e-commerce platforms, and any business that relies on delivering rich media content to end-users are adopting CDNs.
But CDNs are also evolving and becoming more sophisticated than just platforms for caching static files to end-users. Technologies such as edge computing are helping to offload resource-intensive tasks from origin servers to the edge of the CDN.
What is edge computing?
Edge computing is a distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. It strives to move computing closer to the end-users’ locations at “edge servers” or even to their devices.
A significant difference between edge computing and cloud computing is that the latter involves storage, processing, and delivery of content via an on-demand service over the internet. While cloud computing helps businesses jettison costs and resources associated with setting up data centers, hardware, and other computing infrastructure, it still suffers from limitations due to the centralized nature of computing.
For example, cloud computing can increase latency due to the distance between users and the cloud. By moving computing closer to end-users, edge computing shortens the distance that data has to travel, thereby reducing latency. Cloud computing also consumes higher bandwidth if more data has to travel between users and the servers across the internet, which also increases costs proportionally. Edge computing, on the other hand, can process data from an edge server and send only the most relevant data back to the servers, reducing bandwidth needs.
How does CDN Pro help with content delivery?
To help enterprises take advantage of edge computing in their content delivery, CDNetworks offers CDN Pro, a Global Edge Cloud Computing platform. CDN Pro helps you accelerate and scale your applications with granular control over your content delivery and costs.
Reduced latency and optimal user experience
CDN Pro leverages edge computing to reduce latency for your end-users by giving you access to its global content delivery network. By enabling you to move computation close to edge servers, you can provide fast, agile, and superior experiences for your end-users.
Real-time application delivery
CDN Pro is ideally suited for businesses that rely on dynamic websites and real-time traffic in the form of live streaming, Video on Demand (VoD), OTT, and IoT applications by delivering a massive boost to accelerate content delivery, significantly increase bandwidth, and improve user experience.
Global reach
With more than 250 edge Points of Presence (PoPs) deployed worldwide, you can run your business logic just milliseconds away from your end-users at any given time. User requests are routed to the nearest edge servers, reducing workloads on origin servers by more than 90%. Cached content remains available even if the origin server stops responding to requests.
Easy onboarding for developers
In addition to programmatic control and real-time visibility into content delivery, developers can get started on the platform quickly by using code examples and documentation for the CDNetworks’ serverless edge computing platform.
How does serverless CDN Pro Edge Computing work?
CDN Pro Edge Computing runtime code uses the open-source NGINX scripting language. It supports a standard set of NGINX directives and advanced CDNetworks proprietary directives. The CDN Pro portal facilitates a programming interface called Edge Logic that allows you to program and control traffic delivery actions such as modifying requests, responses, cache control, content redirect and modification, HTTP headers, and back-to-origin path manipulation.
Getting started is as easy as logging into the CDN Pro portal account, creating a new property for your application or editing an existing property, and adding your program in the Edge Logic window on the portal.
The following snippet shows an example of Edge Logic code. When performing bot management, you might want to make sure the request is made by a human using a browser instead of by a bot or crawler before the content is delivered to fulfill a request. The following Edge Logic code achieves this purpose by prompting end-users to click a button to receive the requested content:
Once deployed to CDN Pro production, the code scales instantly at the edge locations around the globe. If the CDN Pro platform receives an end-user’s HTTP or HTTPS request for your configured property, your code executes and runs at the edge location closest to the end-user. Since your program code is unconstrained by the limits of physical and virtual server structures, it scales instantly and is always available to your end-users.
To discover more, visit the CDN Pro solution page here. We also invite you to explore the solution directly yourself with a free trial of the Serverless Edge Computing Platform CDN Pro.
