Google has released its very own content delivery network (CDN), making it faster to send big files such as videos to users.
Despite already having partnerships with a number of CDN providers including Akamai, Cloudflare, Fastly, Level 3 Communications and Highwinds, it is automating the service, making it attractive to third parties that may be looking to speed up their delivery network.
"Google Cloud CDN uses Google’s globally distributed edge caches to cache HTTP(S) Load Balanced content close to your users. Caching content at the edges of Google’s network provides faster delivery of content to your users while reducing the load on your servers," Google wrote in the announcement.
The company explained it works by caching the files using a load balancer. When a user first requests access to the file, a request is sent to a network location closer to the user than a company's own servers.
When it realises it is unable to fulfill the request, the edge cache forwards it to the business's own instances. These instances then respond back to the request and deliver the content to the user, while also caching it for future requests.
Next time the content is requested from the same edge cache, it responds directly to the user rather than bouncing back to the company's servers. This saves time and also, overheads because instances don't have to over-run.
Google's Cloud Cache can be activated for all cacheable content and can be activated using a single command using a load balancing-backed service.
Although this is new for Google, such techniques for speeding up content delivery are already operation with Amazon Web Services' CloudFront CDN and Microsoft's Azure CDN.
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