What is a CDN

A CDN is an invisible technology, unknown to the vast majority of Internet users, but indispensable in their daily lives. Who doesn’t read newspapers online, watch streaming series or shop online today? All of these people carry out these activities thanks to a CDN. Depending on which newspaper they read, where they buy from and which pages they visit, it is likely that they are unwittingly using the Transparent Edge CDN, which, in addition to being the only Spanish CDN, is the European alternative to American CDNs.

The acronym CDN stands for content delivery network.

A CDN to bring content closer

A CDN is a network of nodes distributed around the world that replicate the original content from the origin servers so that when a user “calls up” a certain content (a newspaper, a series, a website, etc.), what they receive is a copy of it from the closest node. This proximity guarantees very fast downloads and avoids annoying buffering. A CDN not only delivers web content, but also all data that can be digitized, such as audio, video, applications, games, etc.

At Transparent Edge, we often use a simile when explaining what a CDN is to someone who is unfamiliar with these essential infrastructures for the functioning of the Internet.

It is very costly to put together a paper edition of a newspaper in a printing shop, but once it is put together, all the newspapers that later reach readers are copies of it. In this analogy, a CDN would be the network of kiosks that allows readers to obtain the newspaper without having to go to the printing shop to have one made from the plates.

What is a next-generation CDN?

These comparisons actually refer to the simplest CDNs, which simply maintain cached copies. This would basically be like making copies of the contents of the origin server on their nodes to serve them to the end user.

How does it work?

Next-generation CDNs like ours go much further: they move the application logic to the edge, which means they allow decision-making at the edge itself. An example would be serving one content or another depending on the user’s origin. Imagine an e-commerce site that sells in several countries. Perhaps it has a product in one country that it doesn’t have in others, so it only shows that product to users of its website located in places where the product in question is available. Another example: depending on the user’s location, it may be interesting to show the website in Spanish or English.

The content delivery industry has only grown, receiving a huge boost from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shifted much of our lives to remote mode behind a screen. We experience many things through and thanks to the Internet (teleworking, shopping, entertainment, training, etc.) and this will continue to be the case largely thanks to CDNs. Our estimates are that they already manage around 80% of Internet traffic. And that number may be even higher.