Operating on a pay-as-you-go basis, Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that accelerates the distribution of your static and dynamic web content (.html, .css, .js, and image files) to your users. CloudFront delivers your content via a worldwide network of edge locations.
There are two possible ways of how it works. If the content with the lowest latency is already in the edge location, CloudFront will deliver it immediately. When the content is not in the edge region, CloudFront can fetch it from the origin you've defined.
AWS CloudFront Use Cases
Accelerate static website content delivery
CloudFront helps to speed-up the delivery of the static content (e.g., images, vogue sheets, JavaScript, etc.) web content worldwide. Through leveraging the AWS network infrastructure and CloudFront Edge service when utilizing CloudFront, you will provide the audiences with a stable, quick and consistent experience. Standardly, CloudFront offers a multi-tier cache of regional edge caches that increase reliability and lower the burden on the origin servers if the element is not already cached at the sting.
Live streaming video
Amazon CloudFront provides several options for steaming the media. CloudFront offers worldwide audiences an opportunity to access the video, including pre-recorded and live activities with the 4k resolution.
Serve private content
Through utilizing Lambda@Edge - an Amazon CloudFront function that lets you run code closer to your application's users - you can configure the CloudFront deployment to deliver private content from your own personalized source.
API Acceleration
You will use Amazon CloudFront to protect and automate the WebSocket traffic and the API calls. CloudFront facilitates proxy approaches such as POST PUT, OPTIONS, DELETE and PATCH and by default even connect with the Amazon API entryway. TLS communications with clients end at a local edge position, CloudFront Content Delivery Network instead uses configured AWS-backbone network paths.
Software Distribution
You will make the apps accessible through CloudFront directly on where the users are. Amazon CloudFront scales dynamically as product upgrades are passed to internationally dispersed consumers. Moreover, a high rate of data transmission speeds up processing of the binaries. And it's good to know that high data transfer rates from this CDN speed up the delivery of your binaries, enhancing customer experience while reducing costs.
Benefits of CloudFront
Wide range of security features
Amazon CloudFront is highly secure due to its ability of security at the network and application level. The systems and procedures are built to follow the requirements and regulations that ensure that the most confidential information is transmitted safely. A variety of built-in applications like AWS shield standard that help to defend your content from a lot of refined threats. The list of its security feature consists of:
- Protection against network and application layer attacks
- Access control: geo-restriction capability, Signed URLs and Signed Cookies, as well as Origin Access Identity (OAI)
- SSL/TLS Encryptions and HTTPS
- Compliance with PCI-DSS Level 1, HIPAA, and ISO 9001, ISO 27001, SOC (1, 2 and 3)
Global Availability
Web applications also have to cope with traffic surges during high operation cycles. With 216 points of presence (PoPs), CloudFront must be viewed as a significantly scalable and internationally dispersed CDN that copes with these intense operations cycles. The extremely robust backbone to the Amazon network provides excellent efficiency and end-user quality.
Cost-effectiveness
Free data transferring between AWS Cloud Services and an on-demand pricing are the main reasons why Amazon CloudFront helps you to save costs. With pay-as-you-go pricing method you will be charged only for the used services, without charging any minimum fee.
DevOps-friendly environment
For today's DevOps and CI / CD world CloudFront is highly useful because this CDN supports automation interfaces. It offers a full-featured API for developers to build, install, and manage the CloudFront deployments. Additionally, developers have access to a range of resources to build and deploy their workloads with Amazon CloudFront, such as AWS CloudFormation, CodeDeploy, CodeCommit and AWS SDKs.
Seamless integration with other AWS services
Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon CloudWatch are the most used AWS services CloudFront integrates with. They assist the application delivered by CloudFront in speeding up DNS resolution. Additionally, the integration with the Amazon API gateway lets consumers speed up the distribution of APIs.
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 bucket can be used as a source from which CloudFront can submit files until they are put at its edge locations. This functions in both regular S3 buckets and modified buckets as endpoints for the website. When configuring CloudFront, the S3 bucket may continue to be used with no modifications.
Setting up CloudFront with S3 brings you two big advantages:
- You will boost the efficiency of your applications by delivering material even more easily and to your users
- With CloudFront 's security features you may extend the security and safety of your application
Amazon EC2
CloudFront supports the use of an Amazon EC2 server or an Elastic Load Balancing endpoint in a CloudFront distribution as the origin for files. The support of CloudFront for custom HTTP / HTTPS origin is what makes this integration possible, meaning that it is also possible to use a non-EC2 server as a source of files.
Amazon CloudWatch
Each CloudFront distribution emits metrics from Amazon CloudFront for metrics, such as total number of requests, error rates, and throttles and execution errors from Lambda@Edge. Both indicators are accessible without extra setup and do not count against the drawbacks of CloudWatch, making it a strong starting point for tracking the use of CloudFront.
Quintagroup and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a unique offering that combines the flexibility, scalability, and power of Amazon’s world-leading cloud platform with Quintagroup’s expert consultants and developers. Customer satisfaction is our priority.
