Two decades ago, Bill Gates stated that “content is king.” But probably even he never could have predicted just how much content would be consumed in 2019 on the Internet every single day —or just how challenging is it to deliver content and web applications to an ever-expanding global user base. According to a report by DemandMetric, 90% of all organizations make use of content in their marketing efforts because it generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and also costs 62% less.
The main difficulties include dealing with scalability and performance issues. Most organizations strive for more reliable operational performance through enhanced connectivity and speed between the services and the end-users. The question arises as to how we can deliver most of the services to the end-users within a lesser time frame. In the battle for more reliable and faster website content deliverability with reduced time-to-load, two compelling tools have risen to the top to tackle content issues:
- Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
- Cloud services
To know and understand which solution is more suitable for your business, we need to study and examine the issues that both of them solve. Through this analysis, we will be in a better position to state which one is better.
Cloud Services
Cloud is a much larger platform with a multitude of services. Cloud services support data storage, but their functions are not limited to it. A cloud service is any service that is available to the users via the Internet. It is an on-demand service that comes from a cloud hosting provider‘s servers instead of a company’s in-house servers. Cloud services are intended to provide fully manageable and scalable access to cloud resources, applications, and services. It can scale dynamically to meet the demands of its users.
Examples of cloud services include backup solutions, site management, updates, online data storage, database processing, Web-based email services, hosting office suites, document collaboration services, technical support services, and more.
Cloud Performance
The scope of development and the level of performance is what distinguishes cloud services from CDN hosting. An excellent hosting solution is supposed to boost your website performance. Cloud is a scalable platform that offers a wide range of resources that can be used and shared as per demand. Cloud services are not just about delivering the content; it provides varying services that are powered by varying equipment. It also allows you to add or remove resources as per their needs and lets you host your applications, infrastructure, and development platforms through the varied cloud models.
Cloud Reliability
Cloud services have the edge over the CDN when it comes to reliability. With cloud services, users can experience better reliability statistics as compared to CDN hosting. This is because, in the cloud, if any node fails, another node takes its place right away within seconds. Furthermore, the cloud provider takes charge of the hardware and its networking. Hence, any problem can be solved by troubleshooting in real-time.
Cloud Latency
Cloud services are a next-gen hosting solution that meets all the requirements of an organization. One of the most discouraging factors when visiting a site is the time it takes to load the page. These latency issues can be solved in the cloud with the right placement of data centers. By choosing a geographically close data-center, an organization can improve its website efficiency and page loading time.
Costs
Cloud services considerably save a lot on the company’s IT budget. Cloud services are economical as you only pay for the services you consume. This pay-as-you-go model saves you from investing substantial upfront costs for their service delivery.
Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network is a globally distributed network of Points of Presence or web servers that aims to provide faster content delivery. It was mainly built to reduce the site loading time, also known as latency. CDN offers a different and more efficient method of storing content. It delivers content to the end-user, depending on its proximity to them. In traditional hosting, all of the data is located on a central server; this negatively affects the user experience by limiting the loading speed. In CDN, the content is replicated throughout the network and stored at different locations. This way, the user can access the data that is stored geographically closest to them.
In short, the purpose of a CDN is to provide users with a more efficient network resource utilization and to improve their overall experience. The content-providing organizations such as e-commerce vendors and media groups hire CDN hosting operators to deliver their content to their target audience. In the package, CDN provides carriers, network operators, and ISPs for hosting servers in their data centers.
CDN Performance
Both CDN and cloud services minimize the website loopholes such as unavailability and latency. CDN Hosting delivers static content across the Internet, which eventually enhances the overall website performance. CDN is mainly used for storage because it uses multiple data centers for content. It replicates the content and stores a copy of it from the original server and then transmits it as per the user request. CDN is just transferring the static content that is stored in its data centers; hence the real performance comes through the server networks.
CDN Reliability
A suitable and reliable hosting platform for your business is one that offers a highly scalable server with maximum uptime. The performance of the CDN depends upon the original server. This is because it stores static content from the original server, which is delivered to the end-user as per the request. In a shared platform, many different websites are being hosted on a single server, and as the CDN helps target the end-user with its static content delivery, it heavily relies on the original server performance.
CDN Latency
The loading time of a website starts right from the moment the user requests a site, till the time the website ultimately gets displayed. This load time has a proportionate influence on customer satisfaction. CDN hosting is very well known for solving the latency issue of a website. In a Content delivery network framework, all of the static contents are stored on multiple Data Centers. Whenever visitors request a web page, it reduces the latency by delivering the content from the nearest possible data center location and node.
Cost
When it comes to cost, CDN hosting services are far less expensive than cloud services. Some CDN providers also offer free CDN hosting packages. It is mainly provided as either a core hosting service or as a part of an additional hosting plan.
Conclusion
Cloud computing allows for highly efficient scaling resources for applications, whereas CDN offers a platform for delivering large amounts of content closer to the end-users. But cloud computing represents a broader market and is more extensive in its definition. If the demand for cloud services and CDN is to be compared, then the CDN stands a chance to get suppressed. Hence you can ensure for your business website to have a rock-solid performance by choosing a cloud hosting solution from an industry leader like RedSwitches. We offer a wide range of high-quality enterprise cloud services such as Dedicated hosting, PaaS (Platform as a service), and VPS that serves all the needs of your organization.
But the end choice is still entirely yours. If your business has some specific needs or works as an online content distributor, then only CDN services will serve your needs the best. But if you are looking for overall website efficiency and performance, then you need to host it on a cloud platform.
If you still have any queries about Cloud Services or CDN, then feel free to contact us.
