I recently started reading upon CDNs and how they can help optimize web requests by having a network of edge nodes which are much closer to the user. What kind of parameters do CDN Providers look upon to determine where the edge node should be placed? Will it be just a look up of how many requests come from each region and then place more servers there or are there other factors as well like, maybe Facebook has a lot more requests coming from a particular part of Europe. To help them optimize their requests, a lot of edge nodes may be placed near them?I realize this is a subjective question, but I am not sure where else I can ask this question!
How do CDNs determine where the edge nodes should be placed?
cdn
An Edge node is the server that delivers the content to the user. A CDN is typically spread throughout the globe having edge nodes at multiple continents and even multiple Internet Backbones.The edge node might be an application server, a caching server, or reverse proxy. When you query the CDN, it checks the Edge location which can get you the data with the minimum number of hops. While it optimizes for performance, it then tries to deploy popular data near the client who asked for it.Just because you're using a CDN will not mean that your data is replicated across each and every node. There are different caching mechanisms that are employed by different CDN networksYou can read more about it here: https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/what-is-a-cdn/