Edge cache

Physical POP close to users. First hop. Cache hit = 10-50ms. Miss = ask upstream.

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Edge cache

Physical POP close to users. First hop. Cache hit = 10-50ms. Miss = ask upstream.

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Regional cache

Aggregates edges. Reduces load on origin. Regional cache miss for content already at another edge = origin load.

Cache-Control drives it

Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600. Edge honors. Immutable assets get max-age=1 year.

Cache invalidation

Deploy new asset → old cache still serves. Solutions: content-hashed filenames (immutable) OR purge API (slow, expensive).

Dynamic content

Personalized responses can't be cached. CDN edge terminates TLS + proxies to origin. Still wins on TLS handshake savings.