WhatisCDN(ContentDeliveryNetwork)?
Software Development Glossary & Terms
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Definition.
CDN (Content Delivery Network): A geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers.
In More Detail
A CDN caches content at locations near users, so a request is served from a nearby edge rather than travelling to your origin server. That cuts latency by removing distance, which is the one factor no amount of server tuning improves.
It also absorbs traffic that would otherwise hit your origin, which is why a CDN is the cheapest resilience you can buy for a content-heavy site. The thing to get right is cache invalidation — content-hashed filenames let you cache aggressively and still ship updates immediately, because a changed file is a different URL.
In Practice
Next.js projects deployed to Vercel get CDN distribution for static assets automatically — for international clients specifically, this matters because it's what keeps page-load speed reasonable for visitors far from wherever the origin server is hosted.
Related Terms
Browse the full software development glossary, or see the frequently asked questions.
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