Which CDN Services to Select

Websites are becoming more and more complex, providing many different services to niche markets around the world. When combined with the growing number of internet users around the world, most notably in emerging markets such as Asia and Latin America, and the need to keep up with the global demand for bandwidth, it can be confusing for websites owners looking to incorporate acceleration services into their websites.

The website acceleration method of choice for many businesses and website owners has proven to be content delivery network (CDN). By utilising servers all across the world, identical copies of a website’s data are available to end users. This improves bandwidth, as more locations are available to those requesting data as opposed to a single central server, and also reduces latency as end users are directed to the server geographically closest to them. While all CDNs use these same basic foundations to provide high performance acceleration to websites, they also have many other different services available. It can therefore be difficult for website owners to decide exactly which CDN services are best for their needs.

When deciding which services to select, organisations must ultimately consider the type of data that they are delivering:

1) Websites that deliver large static files, such as software and games titles or updates would benefit most from the content acceleration services of a CDN. These services for the cornerstone of many CDNs and allows bandwidth, and therefore data delivery speeds, to increase significantly. This is important given the large file sizes of modern software.

2) Where the data on a website is constantly being updated, such as on a news or travel update site, dynamic web acceleration services should be selected. Working in a similar way to the content acceleration services that deliver large files, dynamic web acceleration is optimised for smaller file sizes.

3) Online video sharing, TV networks and radio stations can optimise their services through the use of live streaming technologies. With support for high definition video and a variety of formats, these services allow video and audio data to be delivered both live and on demand.

4) Websites with a comprehensive mobile presence can also opt to use mobile acceleration services. These services help accelerate data being transferred over mobile networks, which are slower and have a much greater latency than fixed line networks, by compressing files on the server and prior to delivery.

5) Cloud load balancing technologies can also help websites that experience fluctuating traffic levels. These technologies allow extra bandwidth to be dynamically allocated to a site during spikes in traffic so that all end users have access to the website, ensuring there are no service outages.

6) Analytics tools are also available through most CDN providers. These services are beneficial for many different types of website. The record customers’ information such as demographic data, personal preferences and how they interact with the site. This information can be used to inform many future decisions, from the optimal layout for a website, to how monetisation features such as advertisements can be targeted to the end user.

By employing these CDN network where they are most appropriate, businesses and website owners can provide a high quality service to their end users. This ensures that their online presence is optimised and encourages return visits, safeguarding reputations and profit now and into the future. Organisations like CDNfinder have a great deal of experience in helping leading organisations pick which services are right for them. Get in touch today for high quality and unbiased advice.