Running CDN for cloud storage

On any website there is a large proportion of “heavy” static content: JavaScript libraries, CSS, graphic images, all sorts of binary files ... Storing and distributing this content is always fraught with certain problems: we have already written and told about all this can be solved using our cloud storage .

Difficulties with the distribution of statics increase with the growth of site traffic. The server load increases, the page load time increases, users experience more and more inconvenience ... The geographical factor also plays a huge role: the farther away the user is from the server hosting the site, the slower it all works.

Geographical distance from end users hinders the development of many web projects and the expansion of their audience. In many regions of the world, there is still no high-speed Internet connection. For example, residents of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky or Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk almost do not listen to Internet radio and do not watch videos online: providers of these regions do not offer unlimited tariffs at all. Meanwhile, the proportion of "heavy" content on the Internet is growing, and the low speed of its delivery in modern conditions is unacceptable.
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Today we are ready to help our customers overcome the distance and ensure the delivery of static content at maximum speed. We connected to our cloud storage CDN from Akamai .

Seconds decide everything

It would seem that 4 seconds is very little. But according to statistics, if any web page loads at least a few milliseconds longer than this time, then users leave it - and never return. For commercial web projects, an extra second can result in financial losses.

Search engines, as a rule, prefer fast-running sites. First, the page loading speed is taken into account in the ranking formulas. Secondly, the behavioral factor should not be disregarded: users who leave the page slowly loading reduce its “weight” for search engines. A slow-working site is unlikely to become truly popular among a wide user audience. Practice shows that the speed of work significantly increases the level of attractiveness of web services for visitors (see, for example, interesting material here ).

Slow site loading speed significantly reduces the effectiveness of contextual and banner advertising. If visitors come to the advertisement, but they do not wait for the full load of the site, this means that the money invested in the advertisement, in fact, is wasted: the user does not see what he should see.

The given examples more than convincingly testify that the low speed of loading the site naturally entails serious problems.

Of course, the Internet is becoming faster and cheaper every day, but the inconvenience associated with the abundance of “heavy” content and slow download speed still does not disappear. Many sites rich in graphics and animation, with great difficulty, open from mobile devices, if you connect via a 3G network.

With the help of CDN you can solve all the problems described above and make sure that the site can load quickly from anywhere in the world.

How does CDN work

The abbreviation CDN means content delivery network. CDN is a geographically distributed network consisting of a primary node (origin) and caching nodes (edges) - points of presence, which can be located in various parts of the world. It is on them that all the most "heavy" elements of the site are cached. When accessing the main server, the user will be redirected to the nearest point of presence. Due to this, the network route between servers is reduced, and the site works much faster from the user's point of view.

The CDN device is well shown in the following diagram:

Benefits of CDN

The advantages gained by site owners through the use of CDN are quite obvious:

• Increase the speed of content delivery. A user from anywhere in the world can get content on the optimal network route for the minimum amount of time and from the nearest point;
• Reducing the load on the main server. Users will download all heavy content from caching servers, and due to this the load on the main server will be significantly reduced. The information stored on it will only need to be kept up to date;
• Reducing the cost of infrastructure development. The use of CDN allows you to significantly save on the development of infrastructure (all the "heavy" information is distributed to the caching servers, and you do not need to purchase additional equipment for its storage and distribution).

Many of our clients use the repository to share files with friends and colleagues. As a rule, these are large files: for example, photographs, audio and video recordings, typographic layouts. Thanks to CDN, these files can be downloaded at high speed from anywhere in the world.

Features of use

Distribution of content via CDN is possible through our domain selcdn.com - to start using CDN, you just need to replace selcdn.ru with selcdn.com in the appropriate URL. To bind your own domain, make the CNAME on the required container (replacing selcdn.ru with selcdn.com).

To distribute statics via HTTPS, you can use a shared certificate from Akamai. Links to a secure domain will look like customername-a.akamaihd.net. Despite the fact that this is a general certificate, many large projects use it, for example, Facebook, Coub ... To get an SSL domain, you need to create a ticket in which you specify the wishes for the domain (maximum 16 characters without special characters) and a container from which secure content will be distributed .

Cost of

We have done a great job with our partner in optimizing traffic costs through CDN. Due to this, the cost of traffic through the CDN will not differ from the cost of outgoing traffic from the storage (the funds will be written off with a delay). Unfortunately, if you already have a contract with Akamai, then you most likely will not be able to transfer your traffic to us.

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