Scribd
Upload
952 views19 pages

Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) improve performance and scalability by distributing content across geographically distributed web servers. A CDN allows content providers to replicate their content on a network of servers so that users can access content from the server closest to them, reducing latency. When a user requests content, the CDN directs them to the optimal nearby server through techniques like DNS redirection. This provides users with faster access to content while lowering infrastructure costs for content providers.

Uploaded by

Syed Thowfeeq
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
952 views19 pages

Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) improve performance and scalability by distributing content across geographically distributed web servers. A CDN allows content providers to replicate their content on a network of servers so that users can access content from the server closest to them, reducing latency. When a user requests content, the CDN directs them to the optimal nearby server through techniques like DNS redirection. This provides users with faster access to content while lowering infrastructure costs for content providers.

Uploaded by

Syed Thowfeeq
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 19

Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

• What: Geographically distributed network of Web


servers around the globe (by an individual provider,
E.g. Akamai).
• Why: Improve the performance and scalability of
content retrieval.
• How: Allow several content providers to replicate
their content in a network of servers.
•
 Web Browser Caching
 Web browsers have their own caches. When a page is
downloaded from a site the web page is put into the
browser cache.
 This is especially useful in those cases when the back
button is pressed.
 If a new copy is needed then a “refresh” can be done.
 No page stays permanently in the cache. There is limited
room.
 A replacement algorithm is needed to determine which cached
page should be purged.
 Content Distribution Networks
(CDN)
 Business Model: A content provider such as
www.cnn.com or Yahoo pays a CDN
company (such as Akamai) to get its
content to the requesting users with short
delays.
 A CDN provides a mechanism for
 Replicating content on multiple servers in the
Internet
 Providing clients with a means to determine the
servers that can deliver the content fastest.

 Terminology
 Content: Any publicly accessible combination of text,
images, applets, frames, MP3, video, flash, virtual
reality objects, etc.

 Content Provider: Any individual, organization, or


company that has content that it wishes to make
available to users.

 Origin Server: Content provider’s server , where the


content is first uploaded.

 Surrogate Server (sometimes called edge server):


Content distributor’s server, where the replicated
content is kept.
A Big Picture
CDNs – Content Delivery
Networks (1)
CDNs scale Web servers by having clients get
content from a nearby CDN node (cache)
Content Delivery Networks (2)
Directing clients to nearby CDN nodes with DNS:
– Client query returns local CDN node as response
– Local CDN node caches content for nearby clients
and reduces load on the origin server
Content Delivery Networks (3)
Origin server rewrites pages to serve content
via CDN

Traditional Web page on server

Page that distributes content via CDN


CDN – why?
• One of the main goals of CDNs is to put content
provider in control over how her content is cached
• Content provider signs a contract with CDN
– Contract specifies how content can be cached
• Contract also means CDN will follow what content
provider wants
• CDNs typically charge per-byte of traffic served
• CDNs can be used for any kind of content
– Typically main use is for web content
– Streaming media has also been delivered over CDNs
How Akamai Works
• Clients fetch html document from primary server
– E.g. fetch index.html from cnn.com
–
• URLs for replicated content are replaced in HTML
– E.g. <img src=“http://cnn.com/af/x.gif”> replaced with
<img src=http://a73.g.akamai.net/7/23/cnn.com/af/x.gif>
– Or, cache.cnn.com, and CNN adds CNAME (alias) for
cache.cnn.com  a73.g.akamai.net
–
• Client resolves aXYZ.g.akamaitech.net hostname
– Maps to a server in one of Akamai’s clusters

11
 Current Akamai Customers
Content Distribution Networks (CDNs)
• Content providers are CDN customers origin server
in North America
Content replication
• CDN company installs thousands of
servers throughout Internet
– In large datacenters CDN distribution node
– Or, close to users
• CDN replicates customers’ content
• When provider updates content, CDN
updates servers

CDN server
in S. America CDN server
CDN server in Asia
in Europe

13
Problems
• Significant fraction (>50%?) of HTTP objects uncachable
•
• Sources of dynamism?
– Dynamic data: Stock prices, scores, web cams
– CGI scripts: results based on passed parameters
– Cookies: results may be based on passed data
– SSL: encrypted data is not cacheable
– Advertising / analytics: owner wants to measure # hits
• Random strings in content to ensure unique counting
•
• But…much dynamic content small, while static content
large (images, video, .js, .css, etc.)

14
Content Distribution Networks &
Server Selection

• Replicate content on many servers


•
• Challenges
– How to replicate content
– Where to replicate content
– How to find replicated content
– How to choose among know replicas
– How to direct clients towards replica

15
Server Selection
• Which server?
– Lowest load: to balance load on servers
– Best performance: to improve client performance
• Based on Geography? RTT? Throughput? Load?
– Any alive node: to provide fault tolerance
• How to direct clients to a particular server?
– As part of routing: anycast, cluster load balancing
– As part of application: HTTP redirect
– As part of naming: DNS

16
DNS Redirection vs. URL Rewrite

 Discussion
 Comparison?
 How Akamai Works
cnn.com (content provider) DNS root server
GET foo.jpg

11
12
Akamai
Akamai global
DNS server
cluster
5
1 2 3
HTTP 6
4 Akamai regional
7 DNS server

9 Nearby
Akamai
End-user GET
Host:/foo.jpg
cache.cnn.com cluster
 Players

Yahoo,
MSNBC,
CNN Content Provider
CBC Akamai,
Content
Distributor

Cisco,
Oracle- H/W and S/W
Sun Vendor Bell
Hosting
Provider

You might also like