What is Content Delivery Network (CDN)?
TL;DR
Distributed network of servers that deliver web content to users based on geographic location for faster load times.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of servers that work together to deliver internet content quickly to users. CDNs cache static assets like images, CSS, JavaScript, and videos on servers closest to users, dramatically reducing latency and improving load times.
How CDN Works in Frontend Accelerator
When you deploy a Frontend Accelerator application to Vercel, your static assets are automatically distributed across Vercel's global Edge Network. When a user requests your site, content is served from the nearest edge location rather than a single origin server.
CDN Configuration Example:
// next.config.js
module.exports = {
images: {
domains: ['cdn.yourdomain.com'],
formats: ['image/avif', 'image/webp'],
},
assetPrefix: process.env.CDN_URL,
};
Key Benefits:
- Reduced latency: content served from geographically nearby servers loads faster
- Improved availability: redundant servers prevent single points of failure
- Bandwidth savings: offloading traffic to CDN reduces origin server load
- DDoS protection: distributed architecture absorbs and mitigates attacks
- Automatic optimization: modern CDNs compress, minify, and optimize assets
AI-Friendly: AI tools understand CDN configuration, can suggest optimal caching strategies, recommend appropriate cache headers, and help configure asset delivery for maximum performance. The concept maps clearly to performance optimization goals.