A Content Delivery Network caches your static and dynamic content at edge locations worldwide, reducing latency for users regardless of their geographic distance from your origin server. The performance improvement is often dramatic for international audiences.
CDN Configuration and Cache Optimization
Configure cache-control headers on your origin server to define how long CDN edge nodes retain copies of your content. Static assets like images, CSS, and JavaScript can have long cache durations, while API responses may need shorter TTLs or no caching at all.
Cache key configuration determines what makes each cached response unique. Include query parameters, headers, or cookies in the cache key when they affect content variation, but exclude unnecessary parameters to maximize cache hit rates.
Monitor CDN analytics for cache hit ratio, bandwidth savings, and geographic distribution of traffic. A healthy CDN configuration achieves 90%+ cache hit rates for static content, offloading the vast majority of requests from your origin servers.