Signs it is time to revisit a CDN

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. A few signals that a CDN is due some attention.

Speed is a feature people notice only in its absence, and then they leave rather than complain. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Distance to the server is real latency
• A CDN also absorbs traffic spikes

How we handle it

Static sites benefit almost for free. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

How to tell if yours is fine

Performance work is mostly subtraction, which makes it unpopular and effective. Three things worth confirming about a CDN before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Static sites benefit almost for free — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.