Page 75 - Cloud Essentials

a way to improve the performance and speed of web-based services by

relocating content. A typical web site is composed of an HTML file
containing references to the content of the site, for example, a number of
pictures (see Figure 3-6). Through a CDN service, these pictures will be
served from cloud data centers much closer to the web browsers.

FIGURE 3-6 Clients get web page content from the nearest server.

The domain name of the CDN—static.mycdn.com in Figure 3-6—is
mapped to a different edge server, depending on the location of the web

browser. The CDN typically does this through the Domain Name System
(DNS).

Cloud-Based Storage Hundreds of web sites exist that give users storage
on demand. Examples include Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Docs. They
differ in functionality, but the commonality is that they are accessed through
a web site. In some ways, they resemble SaaS applications.

Cloud-based storage can also be accessed via a web service (PaaS). The
storage itself is considered infrastructure and is therefore IaaS. Some cloud
providers allow you to deploy storage separately from virtual servers so

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