What defines a Content Delivery Network?

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is primarily characterized by its structure as a distributed server network designed to deliver cached copies of content to end-users. This distribution allows for efficient data access, reducing latency and improving load times for websites and applications. By having servers geographically distributed, a CDN can serve users from a location closer to them, which minimizes the time it takes to retrieve data and enhances the overall user experience.

Furthermore, CDNs optimize bandwidth usage and help manage heavy traffic by balancing requests across different servers, which can also improve the availability and reliability of the content being served. They typically cache static content, such as images, videos, and scripts, allowing faster delivery without overloading the origin server.

In contrast to this, a centralized network would generally store data in a single location, potentially leading to slow load times for users far from that center. A local network might improve performance but does not comprise the global distribution that defines a CDN. Similarly, a simple storage solution for small applications does not incorporate the efficient delivery mechanisms and caching strategies inherent to CDNs.