Pull vs Push CDN
What is a CDN?
Content Delivery Network(CDN) is a system of distributed networks that are used to deliver the content like web pages and content(images, videos, audio, etc.) based the location of the user, the origin of the webpage and the location of CDN server.
CDN service is effective for websites that have high traffic and global reach of users. The content will be delivered faster to the user if the server is closer to the user
Types of CDN
There are mainly two types of CDN services: Pull and Push
You may have heard either or both the terms but not sure what it means? To the end users they work in the same way, but to the site administrator, they work in entirely different ways.
Push CDN
Push CDN works like a secondary server. The owner of the website has to manually push the content that needs to be cached to the CDN. This is often accomplished by setting up a remote file that can perform the automatic copy process or cron job which copies the files at a specified interval.
Advantages:
- The end user does not have to wait for the content to be copied to the CDN and then downloaded to their browser.
- A Push CDN gives you more control over the files to be copied and when they are to be copied.
Disadvantages:
- You have to configure the process that copies the files remotely and ensure that it is always working.
Pull CDN
When the end-user requests information from the CDN and the file is not present on the CDN then it pulls the content from the web server. Once the file has been pulled, it is stored or cached by the CDN and served to the user until the file expires.
Advantages:
- A very little configuration is required to set it up and rest of the work is done by the CDN.
Disadvantages:
- It is less flexible.
- The first user may find it time consuming to load the resources.