Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) Questions and Answers for Viva

Answer-1: A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of distributed servers that deliver web content to users based on their geographic location to improve speed and performance.

Answer-2: CDNs reduce latency,increase content delivery speed,improve availability,and enhance user experience.

Answer-3: Popular CDN providers include Cloudflare,Akamai,Amazon CloudFront,Fastly,and Google Cloud CDN.

Answer-4: A CDN caches content on edge servers located near users and serves content from those servers instead of the origin server.

Answer-5: Edge caching is the process of storing content on CDN edge servers closer to end-users.

Answer-6: Static assets (images,videos,JavaScript,CSS),software downloads,streaming media,and even dynamic content.

Answer-7: Static content doesn't change per user (e.g.,images),while dynamic content is personalized or generated in real-time (e.g.,dashboards).

Answer-8: Yes,modern CDNs can serve dynamic content using features like dynamic site acceleration and edge computing.

Answer-9: It is the percentage of user requests served from the CDN cache rather than the origin server.

Answer-10: By reducing the physical distance between users and content,and minimizing server load on the origin.

Answer-11: TTFB is the time a browser waits to receive the first byte of data from a server or CDN.

Answer-12: PoP stands for Point of Presence,which is a CDN data center where cached content is stored and served.

Answer-13: Faster load times improve user experience and page speed,which are factors in search engine rankings.

Answer-14: A reverse proxy CDN sits between the user and the origin server,serving cached content and passing uncacheable requests to the origin.

Answer-15: The origin server is the primary server that holds the original version of a website?s content.

Answer-16: Content invalidation is the process of removing or updating outdated content from a CDN cache.

Answer-17: Cache control refers to HTTP headers that dictate how and for how long content should be cached by CDNs and browsers.

Answer-18: TTL (Time-To-Live) defines how long cached content is stored before being refreshed from the origin.

Answer-19: CDNs absorb and mitigate DDoS traffic through distributed infrastructure and rate-limiting mechanisms.

Answer-20: SSL termination allows the CDN to handle the SSL handshake,offloading the workload from the origin server.

Answer-21: By caching and delivering video files or live streams from edge servers to reduce latency and buffering.

Answer-22: In origin pull,the CDN fetches content when requested. In origin push,the content is uploaded to the CDN in advance.

Answer-23: Cache hit ratio,latency,TTFB,throughput,and error rate.

Answer-24: Web hosting stores website files,while CDN optimizes content delivery from those files to users globally.

Answer-25: Yes,CDNs are optimized for mobile performance by adjusting delivery based on device type and network.

Answer-26: Typically based on data transfer,number of requests,and geographic distribution.

Answer-27: It allows users to set conditions for content delivery,such as caching rules,redirects,and header manipulation.

Answer-28: Token authentication ensures that only authorized users can access certain content served via CDN.

Answer-29: CDNs improve reliability through redundancy,failover support,and faster recovery during outages.

Answer-30: Anycast routing directs user requests to the nearest or best-performing server,improving response time.

Answer-31: CDNs serve users from local servers,minimizing latency across regions and enabling global reach.

Answer-32: Yes,CDNs can cache and accelerate RESTful APIs to reduce response time and backend load.

Answer-33: They cache static elements,optimize dynamic content delivery,and protect against traffic surges.

Answer-34: Protection from DDoS,web application firewalls (WAF),SSL/TLS encryption,and bot mitigation.

Answer-35: Web Application Firewall filters,monitors,and blocks malicious traffic to web applications served via CDN.

Answer-36: Yes,unless cache invalidation and proper cache-control headers are configured correctly.

Answer-37: It allows stale content to be served while the CDN fetches the latest content in the background.

Answer-38: They absorb the load across their distributed infrastructure,preventing origin overload.

Answer-39: CDN peering refers to CDNs interconnecting with other networks or CDNs to improve performance and reach.

Answer-40: It is a modern compression algorithm supported by CDNs for faster content delivery compared to gzip.

Answer-41: Edge computing runs logic or code at edge servers,reducing latency and improving responsiveness.

Answer-42: Fallback mechanisms redirect traffic to another server or PoP if one becomes unavailable.

Answer-43: CDNs log request/response data,cache behavior,and performance metrics for analysis and troubleshooting.

Answer-44: Cache busting ensures new content is served by changing URLs (e.g.,appending version numbers) to avoid stale cache.

Answer-45: Yes,CDNs allow exclusion rules to bypass caching for specific URLs or patterns.

Answer-46: Common headers include Cache-Control,ETag,Expires,and Vary.

Answer-47: Yes,some CDNs offer data localization and logging features to support compliance like GDPR or HIPAA.

Answer-48: Origin shielding adds an intermediate cache layer to reduce origin load by consolidating requests.

Answer-49: Complex configuration,cache invalidation issues,content personalization limitations.

Answer-50: Integration with edge computing,AI-based performance optimizations,and deeper security capabilities.