Google Cloud CDN

Definition

Google Cloud CDN is Google Cloud Platform's content delivery network service, which caches content at Google's globally distributed edge points of presence and works together with Google Cloud's load balancing infrastructure to accelerate content delivery.

Overview

Google Cloud CDN caches HTTP(S) content at edge locations across Google's global network — the same network infrastructure used by Google Search and other Google products — to reduce latency for end users and reduce load on backend services. Unlike some CDNs that operate as a fully independent product, Cloud CDN is enabled as a feature on Google Cloud's global external HTTP(S) load balancer, so it's tightly coupled with how traffic routing is configured on Google Cloud. Origins for Cloud CDN can include Compute Engine instances, Google Cloud Storage buckets for static content, or Google Cloud Run and Google Cloud Functions services fronted by a load balancer. Because caching is layered on top of the load balancer rather than a separate standalone service, enabling Cloud CDN for an existing backend is typically a configuration change rather than introducing an entirely new piece of infrastructure. Like AWS CloudFront and Azure CDN, Google Cloud CDN is commonly paired with cache invalidation rules, signed URLs for restricting access to private content, and compression to optimize delivery of both static assets and cacheable dynamic responses.

Key Features

• Caches HTTP(S) content across Google's global edge network
• Enabled as a feature of Google Cloud's global load balancer
• Supports origins including Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Run
• Signed URLs and signed cookies for restricting access to private content
• Cache invalidation controls for pushing out stale content
• Negotiated compression to reduce payload size for cached responses
• Detailed cache hit ratio and traffic monitoring
• Works alongside Google Cloud Armor for security protections

Use Cases

Frequently Asked Questions

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