A Content Delivery Network is a globally distributed set of edge servers that cache content close to users, reducing latency, offloading origin servers, and improving availability and resilience (including DDoS absorption).

Detailed Answer

By serving static (and increasingly dynamic/edge-computed) content from the nearest PoP, a CDN cuts round-trip time, absorbs traffic spikes, and reduces origin load and bandwidth cost. Cache strategy (TTLs, invalidation, cache keys) is where the real engineering is. Edge functions push compute to the CDN too.

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Interview Tip

Beyond latency, mention origin offload and DDoS absorption, and that cache invalidation is the hard part.

cdnperformancecaching

What is a CDN, and why is it used?

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