We can’t begin with explaining what a multi-CDN is without explaining what CDN is first. CDN or Content Delivery Network is a service that exhilarates internet content delivery; or in other words, the main benefit of a CDN is that it makes your website faster.
Let’s say you are the owner of Amazon, and your server is placed in Washington, the US and you have users all around the world, and let’s say that the user from Sydney requests to use your website, the time that it will take for someone in Sydney to open your website will be around 170ms. And if someone from London requests to access the website, it will take about 100ms.
So that means that the closer you are, the less time you need to access the website. And by placing a CDN in every country you have users in, your website’s content is distributed by the main server into every Amazon CDN. So what that does is, when the user requests to visit your website, the content will be loaded from a local CDN. And that’s how they make your website faster.
Another benefit is that you will see a reduction in the main server’s load, so you will need less capacity to serve all the users. So if you have many international users, you would preferably have as many CDNs as possible. Still, your users may encounter some difficulties even then, and this is where multi-CDN comes to play.
Multi-CDN is a way of making a CDN web and connecting all of those PoPs (Points of Presence) that you have. What it does is, it removes all of the weaknesses from many CDNs and takes all of their strengths. It makes the performance of your website better.
They offer redundancy, so if, for example, one of your CDNs fails due to power outage or any other problem, your traffic will be moved to the next CDN closest to the user.
Multi CDNs will increase the global presence of your website, and its maintenance is cheaper. A good CDN service will allow you to pick the CDNs you want to, and provide the rules and policies that direct your traffic.
Having a multi-CDN will be a better option for you if you have international users because it will release the main server’s load even more than having just one, it can handle more users at a time.
If you decide on having a multi-CDN, you would see which CDN works best for a specific region or network. For example, if one CDN performs best in a particular region or state, that should be the CDN chosen for that region or state.
In conclusion, having CDNs, if you want an international audience for your website, became a must, but having a multi-CDN and making a CDN web is a fantastic improvement. Who does not appreciate faster speeds, abetter quality of services, and a lower cost?