The digital world evolves quickly; every user wants information and great experiences quickly on all devices. If your website or app loads slowly, users get frustrated and may leave. This is where Amazon CloudFront helps. CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) service from Amazon Web Services, and it improves how businesses send content to users.
Introduction
CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that uses edge locations to deliver content quickly. When someone visits your site, CloudFront routes their request and sends the request to the nearest edge location. The user gets the content from a close location, which reduces loading times and improves their experience.
Using CloudFront improves your site's speed and reliability. Requests go through Amazon's networks instead of the public internet. This reduces delays and data transfer issues. Your content stays accessible even if a server fails. CloudFront also copies files across many locations globally. So if one origin has issues, users can still access your content. This distributed system makes your site highly available worldwide.
What does Amazon CloudFront do?
| Functionality | Description |
|---|---|
| Content Delivery Network (CDN) | Distributes content globally with low latency by caching content at edge locations. |
| Accelerates Content Delivery | Speeds up the delivery of static and dynamic content, including videos, images, and APIs. |
| Secure Content Delivery | Provides HTTPS support for secure content delivery, including SSL/TLS certificates. |
| Origin Shield | Protects origin servers from sudden surges in traffic by caching content at a centralized location. |
| DDoS Protection | Mitigates Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by absorbing and filtering malicious traffic. |
| Custom SSL Certificates | Allows you to use custom SSL certificates for secure connections between viewers and CloudFront. |
| Lambda@Edge | Enables running serverless functions at edge locations to customize content delivery and add functionality. |
| Real-Time Logs | Provides detailed logs in real-time for monitoring and troubleshooting content delivery. |
| Field-Level Encryption | Allows selective encryption of sensitive data fields within your application. |
| Streaming Media Optimization | Optimizes the delivery of streaming media content, such as video-on-demand and live streaming. |
Key Features of Amazon CloudFront Service
Here are the key features of Amazon CloudFront Service:
Global Edge Network
CloudFront has a large global edge network. This helps it deliver content quickly worldwide. Edge locations are placed around the globe which helps reduce latency and increases throughput to provide users a smooth, fast experience. CloudFront uses a redundant network backbone with multiple 400GbE fibers, and this connects it efficiently to AWS Regions. Its infrastructure has Regional Edge Caches (RECs), Points of Presence (POPs), and embedded POPs in ISP networks. Content is served from the optimal location near users.
Security
Safeguarding your data is Amazon CloudFront's utmost concern. It cooperates with other AWS services like AWS Shield, AWS WAF, and Amazon Route 53. Together, they create a robust security shield against different attacks. These include network and application layer DDoS attacks. CloudFront supports SSL/TLS encryption and HTTPS delivery, and it also utilizes the latest TLS version (TLSv1.3) for secure client-CDN communication.
Availability and Redundancy
Amazon CloudFront focuses on availability and redundancy. Origin Shield, a feature of AWS CloudFront, reduces the load on origins by combining requests across regions and enabling central caching. This minimizes requests reaching the origin, boosting availability and performance. CloudFront supports multiple origins for backend redundancy. If the primary origin fails, it automatically switches to a backup origin, ensuring high content availability.
Edge Computing
CloudFront's edge computing capabilities bring computing power closer to users. CloudFront functions let you run lightweight, low-latency operations at the edge, like modifying headers, rewriting URLs, and normalizing cache keys. These functions run instantly across edge locations. For more complex tasks, AWS Lambda@Edge supports a range of use cases, including video streaming optimizations, third-party integrations, and server-side rendering of single-page apps at the edge.
Real-Time Metrics and Logging
CloudFront provides real-time monitoring and logging through CloudWatch integration. It automatically publishes operational metrics and graphical representations of distributions. This lets you monitor cache stats, request counts, data transfer, and error rates. CloudFront also offers standard logs delivered to S3 and real-time logs delivered to Kinesis Data Streams. These logging options give detailed viewer request info, helping analyze traffic patterns, troubleshoot issues, and optimize content delivery.
How to Set up Amazon CloudFront
Here are the steps involved in setting up Amazon CloudFront to deliver your content:
Specify origin servers
Identify the servers that will store the original, definitive versions of your files. Options include Amazon S3 buckets and HTTP servers (e.g., web servers running on Amazon EC2 instances or servers you manage). These servers are referred to as origin servers or custom origins.
Upload files (objects) to your origin servers
- Upload the files you want CloudFront to distribute, such as web pages, images, media files, or any content that can be served over HTTP.
- If using Amazon S3 as an origin server, Decide whether to make objects publicly readable, allowing anyone with the CloudFront URLs to access them. Alternatively, keep objects private and control access using signed URLs or signed cookies.
Create a CloudFront distribution
A distribution tells CloudFront which origin servers to retrieve files from when users request them through your website or application. During distribution creation, specify:
- Origin server details (e.g., S3 bucket or HTTP server).
- Whether to enable request logging.
- Whether to allow the distribution as soon as it's created.
- Other optional settings (e.g., caching behavior, geo-restrictions, SSL/TLS certificates).
CloudFront assigns a domain name
After creating the distribution, CloudFront provides a unique domain name. You can find this domain name in the CloudFront console or through programmatic requests like API calls. Use this domain name in your URLs to reference files served by CloudFront. Optionally, set up a custom domain name and associate it with your distribution using a CNAME record in your DNS settings.
CloudFront sends distribution configuration to edge locations (POPs)
Edge locations, called points of presence (POPs), have servers in data centers worldwide. CloudFront sends your setup info (not content) to these locations. At the edge locations, CloudFront saves copies of your files. It serves the copies fast to users based on where they are.
Use CloudFront domain name or custom domain name in your URLs
You can access files on your site or app using CloudFront's domain name or custom one. CloudFront fetches requested files from the right edge location or origin server based on the URL you provide.
(Optional) Configure the origin server to add headers specifying cache duration
By default, files stay in CloudFront edge locations for 24 hours before expiring. Configure your source server to add headers to files. These headers indicate how long you want them cached. Use the `Cache-Control` or `Expires` headers to specify cache duration. The minimum expiration time is 0 seconds, and there is no maximum expiration time.
CloudFront serves content to users
When a user requests a file through your website or application, CloudFront routes the request to the nearest edge location. If the requested file is already cached at the edge location, CloudFront serves it directly to the user, providing fast delivery. If the file is not cached or has expired, CloudFront retrieves it from the origin server, caches it at the edge location (based on the cache duration settings), and serves it to the user.
Some useful Amazon CloudFront CLI commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| Create a new CloudFront distribution. |
| Update an existing CloudFront distribution. |
| Retrieve information about a specific distribution. |
| List all CloudFront distributions. |
| Delete a CloudFront distribution. |
| Create a new invalidation for a distribution. |
| Retrieve information about a specific invalidation. |
| List all invalidations for a distribution. |
| Create a new CloudFront streaming distribution. |
| Update an existing CloudFront streaming distribution. |
| Retrieve information about a specific streaming distribution. |
| List all CloudFront streaming distributions. |
Pricing of Amazon CloudFront Service
| Feature | Pricing Details |
|---|---|
| Data Transfer Out to Internet (per GB) | Starts at $0.085 per GB |
| Data Transfer Out to Origin (per GB) | Varies by region, typically $0.02 to $0.02 per GB |
| HTTPS Requests | $0.001 per request |
| Lambda@Edge Invocation | $0.60 per million requests |
| HTTP/HTTPS Data Transfer | Varies by region and data transfer tier. Typically ranges from $0.02 to $0.14 per GB, with lower prices for higher usage. |
| Cache Behavior | Varies based on configuration, including cache hit ratio and regional data transfer rates. |
| Invalidation Requests | $0.005 per invalidation request |
| Dedicated IP Custom SSL | $600 per month |
| Real-Time Logs | $0.10 per GB of log data transferred from CloudFront to the specified destination |
Conclusion
Businesses can gain major advantages with Amazon CloudFront, a strong content delivery network service. It quickly delivers content using edge locations worldwide. CloudFront has edge computing functions, and real-time tracking too. Setting it up accelerates content delivery, and reduces delays so that users get smooth experiences globally.
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https://devopsden.io/article/aws-lambda-pricing
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