Managing Content Delivery Networks with School Manager

What is a CDN?

Websites and online applications have become more complex, with users expecting them to load instantaneously. Organizations seeking to attract and keep customers must prioritize speed to minimize customer dissatisfaction and churn. Organizations maintain excellent website and application performance by using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). 

A CDN is a geographically distributed group of interconnected servers that bring web content closer to end users. CDNs reduce network latency or wait time and improve web pages and applications' performance by hosting HTML pages, javascript files, stylesheets, images, and videos for content owners. Today, the vast majority of online traffic is supplied by CDNs as their popularity and use continue to grow.

How do Websites and Applications use CDNs?

A CDN takes an initial request for a website or application domain and redirects it to an appropriate CDN server. Cached content is then delivered from the CDN server to the user device across a shorter distance. 

The origin server is where a website or application’s content is kept and where the initial request occurs. Static web pages (pictures, text, and code), software downloads, rich media (audio and video), and dynamic content generated by applications are examples of the several types of material that are saved.

CDN servers are where a cached copy of the origin server content is stored. They are geographically distributed caching servers located in data centers and are often called Points of Presence (PoPs) or edge servers.

If a CDN server doesn’t have the requested content, it retrieves it from the origin server and delivers it to the user. Future user requests for that content are completed more quickly. CDN management software uses algorithms and machine learning to improve performance by anticipating content requests, retrieving material from the origin server before it is required, and keeping up with changing content on the origin server.

Blocking CDNs using School Manager

Linewize strongly recommends that you don’t try to block CDN traffic using School Manager. Blocking CDNs will result in websites and applications not displaying or working as intended. If a CDN appears to be using excessive amounts of data, use Apps and Websites and Users pages in the School Manager Statistics Interface to find websites and applications that use the CDN and consider blocking those instead.