What is AWS CloudFront?

What is AWS CloudFront?

If you're looking to optimize your website’s performance, Amazon CloudFront is one of the best solutions to consider. But what exactly is it, and how can it help your business? Let’s dive into the details.

Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) service from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to users globally with low latency and high transfer speeds. Essentially, CloudFront accelerates the delivery of your content to users by caching it in multiple locations worldwide.

Benefits of AWS CloudFront

Here are some key benefits of using Amazon CloudFront:

• Low Latency and High Speed: CloudFront reduces latency by caching content at edge locations closer to users.

• Scalable and Flexible: CloudFront can automatically scale with the demand, whether you have a handful of users or millions.

• Cost-Effective: It offers pay-as-you-go pricing, meaning you only pay for the data you deliver.

• Secure: CloudFront integrates with AWS Shield for DDoS protection and AWS WAF for additional security.

• Global Reach: With over 450 Points of Presence (PoPs), including edge locations and regional caches, CloudFront delivers your content to users anywhere, anytime.

How Does AWS CloudFront Work?

CloudFront speeds up the delivery of your website’s content by utilizing a network of edge locations around the world. These locations cache static content (like images and videos) and distribute it to users when requested. Here's how it works:

• Origin Server: Your content resides in an origin server, which could be an Amazon S3 bucket, an EC2 instance, or even a non-AWS server.

• Edge Locations: When a user requests your content, CloudFront redirects them to the nearest edge location for faster delivery.

• Caching: CloudFront caches the content in the nearest edge location, so the next time a user requests the same data, it’s delivered faster.

How to Create a Distribution Network for CloudFront?

Setting up CloudFront is simple. Follow these steps:

1. Log in to AWS Management Console: Go to the CloudFront service.

2. Create a New Distribution: Choose the origin of your content (Amazon S3, EC2, or another server).

3. Configure Settings: Select the caching settings, SSL certificates, and other security configurations.

4. Deploy: After the distribution is created, CloudFront will start delivering your content globally.

Companies Using CloudFront

Many leading companies and websites use CloudFront to deliver their content. Examples include:

• Netflix: Streaming high-quality video content globally.

• Adobe: Delivering software updates and large files to users.

• Walmart: Optimizing e-commerce experiences for customers worldwide.

Amazon CloudFront Pricing

Amazon CloudFront pricing is based on several factors:

• Data Transfer: You pay for the data delivered to your users.

• Requests: Charges are incurred based on the number of requests made to CloudFront.

However, CloudFront offers an excellent cost-benefit ratio, particularly when scaling your infrastructure.

Why Amazon Cloudfront?Any cacheable data transferred from AWS resources to CloudFront edge locations does not incur additional charges. However, CloudFront does charge for data transfers from its edge locations to the internet, as well as for HTTP or HTTPS requests. Pricing varies depending on the usage type, geographical region, and selected features. Below are the pricing options.

No-nonsense Free Tier

As part of the AWS free Usage Tier you can get started with Amazon CloudFront for free.

Included in Always Free Tier

• 1 TB of data transfer out to the internet per month

• 10,000,000 HTTP or HTTPS Requests per month

• 2,000,000 CloudFront Function invocations per month

• 2,000,000 CloudFront KeyValueStore reads per month

• Free SSL certificates

• No limitations, all features available