JUNE 2016CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM 19Depending on your business, compliance concerns could be a major considerationMike GiojaGetting Started with aContent Delivery Network hile the concept of a content delivery network (CDN) isn’t new, the use of these networks has evolved significantly since the 1990s when the World Wide Web exploded in popularity and search engine providers became mainstream users of CDN. Online news sites were the next adopters of the technology, followed by audio and video sites like YouTube, next was services like Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive, and now, technology companies that offer software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are turning to CDN to meet their needs and stay competitive when it comes to application performance, reliability, and cost savings, to name a few. A content delivery network is a system of distributed servers that deliver web pages and other web content to a user based on the geographic location of the user, the origin of the webpage, and a content delivery server. According to a report by MicroMarket-Monitor, the North American content delivery network market is expected to grow from $1.95 billion in 2013 to $7.83 billion in 2019. This projected growth is largely due to how end users inter-act with online content, including the growth and popularity of things like streaming media, mobile devices, SaaS applications, and e-Commerce. Content delivery networks offer a number of benefits to soft-ware-as-a-service technology companies, but before making the decision to jump in, it’s important to have an understanding of the benefits, what’s involved with using a CDN, and what to look for when evaluating providers. Primary reasons why you should consider implementing a con-tent delivery network:• Performance. A CDN will improve the performance of your site or application by pushing static content out across the internet to datacenters in specified geographic locations. This improves the performance of your site by placing the data closer to the user, in-stead of grabbing it from a centralized datacenter. Mike Gioja, CIO SVP - IT Product Management, Development, PaychexWCIOINSIGHTS
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