CDN Cache Keys and the Vary Header

A cache key decides whether two requests may reuse the same stored response. A typical CDN starts with the request scheme, host, path, and query string. It may also include selected headers or cookies. The Vary response header is the HTTP mechanism that tells a cache which request headers selected a representation. The safe goal is simple: requests that should receive the same bytes should share a key, while requests that require different bytes must not collide. A key that is too narrow can expose the wrong response. A key that is too broad creates many variants, lowers the cache hit ratio, and increases origin traffic. ...

August 13, 2026 · CDN Handbook

CDN Delivery in Mainland China

Delivering from CDN nodes inside mainland China is a separate product and compliance decision, not just a checkbox on a global network map. Confirm current requirements with qualified local counsel and the selected service provider before launch; this page is technical guidance, not legal advice. Start with the delivery region Decide whether the requirement is: edge delivery from nodes inside mainland China; delivery from nearby locations outside the mainland, such as Hong Kong, Japan, or Singapore; or one global configuration that includes the mainland. These designs have different onboarding, performance, feature, contract, and regulatory consequences. For example, Alibaba Cloud’s current CDN documentation distinguishes mainland-only, global, and global-excluding-mainland acceleration regions. It requires an ICP filing for the first two and not for the third. See Alibaba Cloud’s acceleration-region documentation. ...

August 13, 2026 · CDN Handbook

CDN Security Advisories and Incident Sources

CDN incidents are easy to misread because a public symptom can originate in the CDN, an origin, DNS, a certificate authority, a cloud dependency, or the customer’s own configuration. Use primary sources to establish what is known before assigning cause. This page is a monitoring method and source directory. It is not a live incident feed. Start with the incident class Signal Check first Confirm with Broad availability drop Provider status page Provider incident history and your regional probes New CVE or exploited flaw Vendor advisory and CISA KEV Product/version scope and remediation text Elevated 5xx responses CDN and origin logs The 5xx ownership and diagnosis guide Certificate failures CDN certificate state and CA status TLS handshake logs and affected hostnames Cache or purge anomaly Cache-status headers and purge operation IDs The purge verification checklist Suspected attack WAF, bot, and DDoS event logs Provider advisory, indicators, and application logs Primary status sources Akamai service status AWS Health Dashboard Cloudflare status Fastly status Google Cloud service health Microsoft Azure status Subscribe to the provider’s official email, RSS, Atom, webhook, or API option where one exists. A third-party aggregator is useful for discovery, but it should not be the sole evidence for impact, cause, or resolution. ...

August 13, 2026 · CDN Handbook

Does Hetzner Have a CDN?

No. Hetzner does not provide a native content delivery network. Hetzner’s Object Storage FAQ explicitly says that Object Storage is not a CDN and recommends placing a third-party CDN in front of it for large-scale global delivery. Hetzner can still be the origin. A CDN can fetch files from Hetzner Object Storage, a cloud server, a dedicated server, or a load-balanced application and cache suitable responses at its edge locations. What Hetzner provides Hetzner provides infrastructure products such as cloud servers, dedicated servers, load balancers, DNS, and S3-compatible Object Storage. These products run applications and store content. Their data-center locations are not a globally distributed CDN cache footprint. ...

August 13, 2026 · CDN Handbook

How to Compare CDN Pricing

CDN pricing cannot be compared reliably with one advertised per-gigabyte number. A useful estimate applies each provider’s current rate card or proposal to the same traffic, cache, security, and support assumptions. Build one workload model Record a representative month and a peak event separately. At minimum include: delivered bytes by billing region; HTTP and HTTPS request counts; cache-hit ratio and bytes fetched from origins or shields; purge and configuration-change volume; log volume and destination; image, video, edge-compute, WAF, bot, and DDoS usage; committed traffic, overage, and contract term; support tier and required service level. Use measured traffic where possible. If the application is new, publish the assumptions beside the estimate and run low, expected, and high scenarios. ...

August 13, 2026 · CDN Handbook

Multi-CDN vs. Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA)

Multi-CDN and Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA) are both strategies to make content delivery faster and more reliable. They are often mentioned together, but they tackle different parts of the problem. Multi-CDN chooses between providers, while DSA focuses on optimizing the transport path between the CDN edge and the origin. What DSA Does Dynamic Site Acceleration was introduced in the 2000s as a premium CDN feature. It targets dynamic content that cannot be cached. Instead of improving speed through storage at the edge, DSA makes the path between the edge and the origin faster. ...

August 17, 2025 · CDN Handbook

Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA)

Dynamic Site Acceleration, or DSA, is a group of techniques for requests that still need to reach the origin. A CDN edge accepts the client connection, reuses optimized connections toward the origin, and may choose a better measured route. DSA can reduce network and connection delay, but it cannot remove slow application processing. DSA is not an HTTP standard or one uniform product. Providers use different names and combine different controls. Evaluate the documented behavior and measured result, not the label. ...

August 17, 2025 · CDN Handbook

The History of Multi-CDN

Using multiple CDNs at once is now a common strategy for large platforms. Known as Multi-CDN, it provides resilience, global reach, and performance tuning beyond what any single provider can guarantee. This article traces the history of Multi-CDN, from early experiments with failover to modern platforms that automate real-time traffic steering across many networks. Early beginnings: redundancy and failover The first Multi-CDN setups in the early 2000s were crude but effective. Enterprises with global audiences, especially in media and finance, sometimes contracted with more than one provider. Typically, they designated a “primary” CDN and configured a “backup” to handle traffic if the main service failed. ...

August 17, 2025 · CDN Handbook

The History of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs, are now invisible yet essential infrastructure. They accelerate websites, deliver video, block attacks, and connect billions of users to online services. Their story stretches from the late 1990s, when a few pioneering companies sold premium acceleration to media giants, to today, when free CDN tiers are available to anyone running a blog. This article traces that history, highlighting the technical and commercial shifts that shaped the CDN industry. ...

August 16, 2025 · CDN Handbook

Top 10 Questions About Multi-CDN

Multi-CDN is a strategy that uses more than one CDN at the same time. Instead of relying on a single provider, traffic flows through multiple networks and is steered to whichever one works best at that moment. This approach improves reach, resilience, and sometimes cost efficiency. If you are unfamiliar with the basics of CDNs, see the Top 10 Questions About CDNs first. 1. What is a Multi-CDN and how does it differ from a single CDN? A single CDN depends on one provider’s network of points of presence. A Multi-CDN combines the reach of several providers, switching between them based on performance, location, or availability. The result is fewer single points of failure and a smoother experience for global audiences. ...

August 16, 2025 · CDN Handbook

Top 10 Questions About Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs, keep much of the modern web running smoothly. They are behind faster page loads, fewer outages, and safer browsing experiences. If you have wondered how they work or whether you should use one, here are the ten questions people ask most - with answers in plain language. For more advanced strategies that combine multiple providers, see the Top 10 Questions About Multi-CDN. 1. What is a CDN and how does it work? A CDN is a network of servers in many locations. It stores copies of website content on those servers so they can be delivered from a place closer to the visitor. Instead of every request going back to the main origin server, a CDN routes the visitor to the nearest edge server. The shorter the journey, the faster the response. ...

August 16, 2025 · CDN Handbook

MadeYouReset Disclosure Listed Cloudflare Status as Unknown

On August 13, 2025, the CERT Coordination Center updated its MadeYouReset vulnerability note. The note describes an HTTP/2 implementation flaw tracked as CVE-2025-8671. A client can trigger server-sent stream resets while backend work continues, which can exhaust server resources. CERT/CC listed Cloudflare as notified on May 28, 2025, but marked its response status as unknown in the August update. The available record therefore did not support the original article’s claim that Cloudflare had deployed a specific global mitigation. ...

August 16, 2025 · CDN Handbook