Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Explain what a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is.
• Understand why CDNs improve website performance.
• Explain the concepts of Edge Locations and Points of Presence (PoPs).
• Understand caching and cache-control.
• Differentiate between static and dynamic content.
• Explain cache invalidation.
• Describe the complete CDN request flow.
• Understand how CDNs improve availability and security.
• Explain how AWS CloudFront works.
• Troubleshoot common CDN-related production issues.

Introduction

Imagine a company headquartered in New York that sells products worldwide.

Every customer request must travel all the way to New York before receiving a response.

A customer in:

• Nigeria
• South Africa
• India
• Australia