What Is A CDN?

A content delivery network, or CDN, serves your data to all corners of the globe at lightning speed, but how does it do it?
The internet is made up of billions of images, reams of text and countless files. Over 3.2 billion internet users access this data every month by sending a request through their internet service provider (ISP) to the server that hosts it. The time it takes for these request to travel from point A to point B, called latency, varies depending on the distance between the request and the server.
For example: If a server in New York gets a request from Egypt, the latency will be longer than if the server received a request from New Jersey.
This is where a content delivery network steps in.
Content delivery networks (CDNs) are evolving to be an integral part of online business; their method of delivering data reduces latency significantly. A CDN acts as a hotspot for information retrieval by storing your important data in several different locations around the world, so that your website visitor in Egypt can receive your information from India rather than waiting for it to arrive from New York.
Think of a CDN as a franchise of a larger company. If we had to visit Bentonville, Arkansas every time we wanted to shop at Walmart, their business would definitely suffer. By strategically placing different Walmarts in convenient locations in towns across the US customers are able to easily access their products and services.
CDNs do this with data distribution, and this is how:
A content delivery network is made up of a large network of servers placed around the world, hopefully close to those accessing your data. Each of these servers stores an exact replica of your information; when a computer makes a request the intelligent network can route your information from the server which is closest geographically to the request.
Content delivery networks increase the reliability of your services and lower latency times, making for happier customers! With a CDN your information can be instantly available around the clock; it is an easy and inexpensive way to boost the performance of your server. If one of the servers in the network experiences downtime or an outage you can rest assured knowing that your data is still zooming around the globe to anyone who needs it.
Midphase is now offering access to an amazing CDN through our partnership with CloudFlare, a web performance and security company. CloudFlare is dedicated to improving the speed, safety and quality of online data interactions. CloudFlare is now free to Midphase hosting clients, offering their content delivery network with replicas of your data in 35 global data centers. CloudFlare services help Midphase clients keep their sites speedy, and their information secure and accessible around the clock and around the world.
Over 2,000,000 global websites are powered and protected by CloudFlare, a figure that increases daily. They are committed to a safe environment for all internet users around the world. CloudFlare has your back as you increase positive interactions with customers, attract more visitors and improve your brand reputation, meaning that when a potential customer visits your site your product or service will be showcased without frustrating loading times or glitches.
Find out more about how a CDN from Midphase and CloudFlare can take improve your site at Midphase.com/website-hosting/cloudflare.