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Sudarshan Yadav
Sudarshan Yadav

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Day 19 | Amazon CloudFront — Content Delivery Network (CDN) in AWS 🌍⚡

📅 Day 19 | Amazon CloudFront — Content Delivery Network (CDN) in AWS 🌍⚡

Today, I learned about Amazon CloudFront, which is a fast, secure, and scalable Content Delivery Network (CDN) service provided by AWS.

CloudFront delivers web content, images, videos, APIs, and static files to users from edge locations (servers closest to users), reducing latency and improving performance.

CloudFront helps in building highly available, low-latency, and secure applications, making it an essential service in DevOps and cloud-native architectures.

Amazon CloudFront in AWS DevOps – Step-by-Step Guide

1. What is Amazon CloudFront?

Amazon CloudFront is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service provided by AWS.

It delivers content like:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • Images
  • Videos
  • APIs

from edge locations (servers near users) to provide low latency and high speed.

Main Goal:

  • Faster website performance
  • Reduced load on backend servers
  • Secure and scalable content delivery

2. Why CloudFront is Important in DevOps?

In DevOps, applications are deployed frequently and accessed globally.

CloudFront helps by:

  • Caching content
  • Improving performance
  • Reducing server load
  • Integrating with CI/CD pipelines
  • Providing security (HTTPS, WAF)

3. How CloudFront Works (Architecture Flow)

Request Flow:

  1. User requests www.example.com
  2. Request goes to the nearest CloudFront Edge Location
  3. CloudFront checks cache:
    • If content exists → serve immediately
    • If not → request goes to Origin
  4. Origin sends data to CloudFront
  5. CloudFront caches the data and delivers it to the user
  6. Next users get cached content faster

4. What is an Origin?

Origin is the source of original content.

Common origins:

  • Amazon S3
  • EC2 Instance
  • Application Load Balancer (ALB)
  • API Gateway

5. Key Components of CloudFront

Component Description
Distribution CloudFront configuration
Origin Source of content
Edge Location CDN server near users
Cache Behavior Rules for caching
TTL Cache duration
Invalidation Clear cached content

6. Step-by-Step: Using CloudFront with S3

Step 1: Create an S3 Bucket

  • Create bucket (example: my-static-site)
  • Upload files: index.html, style.css
  • Enable Static Website Hosting
  • Configure permissions or OAC

Step 2: Create CloudFront Distribution

  1. Go to CloudFront
  2. Click Create Distribution
  3. Select S3 bucket as Origin
  4. Enable Origin Access Control (OAC)
  5. Set Default Root Object: index.html
  6. Redirect HTTP → HTTPS
  7. Create distribution

Step 3: Access Website

CloudFront provides a domain like:

Your website is now faster and globally accessible.

7. Cache Behavior Explained

CloudFront caches content based on:

  • URL path
  • Headers
  • Cookies
  • Query strings

Example:

  • /static/* → Cached
  • /api/* → Not cached

8. Cache Invalidation

When content changes, CloudFront may still serve old cached files.

To invalidate cache:

  1. Open CloudFront Distribution
  2. Go to Invalidations
  3. Add paths:

9. CloudFront with EC2 / ALB

Flow:

User → CloudFront → ALB → EC2

Use cases:

  • Dynamic web applications
  • APIs
  • Microservices

Benefits:

  • Reduced latency
  • Reduced backend load
  • Better security

10. Security Features in CloudFront

Feature Purpose
HTTPS Secure data transfer
AWS WAF Protect from attacks
Signed URLs Restrict access
Geo Restriction Country-based access
OAC Secure S3 access

11. CloudFront in CI/CD (DevOps Use Case)

Typical Flow:

  1. Developer pushes code to GitHub
  2. CI/CD pipeline builds project
  3. Files uploaded to S3
  4. CloudFront cache invalidation triggered
  5. Users see updated content instantly

12. Common Interview Questions

What is CloudFront?

A CDN service that delivers content with low latency using edge locations.

What is an Edge Location?

A server that caches and delivers content closer to users.

Difference between S3 and CloudFront?

  • S3 stores data
  • CloudFront delivers data faster using caching

Why use CloudFront in DevOps?

For speed, scalability, security, and CI/CD integration.

13. Real-Time Use Cases

  • Static websites (React, Angular)
  • Video streaming
  • API acceleration
  • E-commerce websites
  • Software downloads

14. Summary

Amazon CloudFront is a powerful CDN service that:

  • Improves performance
  • Enhances security
  • Reduces backend load
  • Fits perfectly into DevOps pipelines

Thank You

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