How does a CDN work and why is it so important?

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network for the distribution of content formed by a set of servers scattered in different physical and network locations. The contents distributed are multiple, but the videos are certainly the most numerous, both live and on-demand. These specialized video streaming server networks speed up distribution through caching, which temporarily stores content on multiple servers distributed within the video CDN. When a user sends a request, the server with a content cache closer to the user’s location distributes the video. This server network acts in practice as an intermediary between a content server, also called source, and its end-users or clients.

Latency is the time it takes the content to reach its destination. This time depends on the distance of the server and the number of packets sent, as well as the infrastructure and connectivity. If the connection between the two points is not clean you may lose some packets during transmission.

When the user requires viewing a live streaming or on demand video, the process requires the transmission to be smooth and the packets to be rebuilt quickly to allow the player to continue viewing. An inefficient buffering situation could lead the user to abandon. The CDN works on this criticality, going to solve it.

Video CDN is advantageous for both network service providers and customers, as the latter require video content of the highest quality and performance of multimedia streaming software. By accessing content through a CDN, streaming speed is better and the reliability is higher; they can also benefit from additional services such as mobile device detection and optimization.

Using a CDN can be an excellent solution to reduce the rate of abandonment of subscribers: reducing traffic on the main network Web performance and video content improve, in addition, creating and implementing value-added services attracts new customers and retains existing subscribers.

Content providers also benefit from a video CDN, as customer conversion rates increase and loyalty is strengthened.

It is in this context that the new partnership between IES Italia and Lumen is part of, a collaboration that will lead to an improvement of streaming services and the acquisition and loyalty of subscribers to platforms.

Here you can find the press release.