Accelerating Global Content Delivery with Amazon CloudFront

AMJ Cloud Technologies partnered with a rapidly growing SaaS company to overhaul their content delivery system using Amazon CloudFront. This case study highlights how we achieved global scalability, reduced latency, and enhanced security for a platform serving users across multiple continents.

Situation

The client, a SaaS company with a global customer base, faced significant performance challenges due to their centralized infrastructure. Static content (e.g., images, documents) and dynamic API responses were served from a single AWS region, causing high latency and degraded experiences for users in Asia and South America, especially during peak hours. Additionally, the platform lacked robust DDoS protection and cost-effective scalability, risking user satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Task

Our team was tasked with designing a global content delivery solution to meet the following objectives:

• Reduce latency for users across regions, particularly in Asia and South America.
• Ensure consistent performance during peak traffic.
• Enhance security against DDoS and application-level attacks.
• Minimize backend infrastructure load to reduce costs.
• Maintain high availability and scalability for future growth.

The project was executed by a team of cloud architects and DevOps engineers over a two-month timeline.

Action

To achieve these objectives, we implemented a comprehensive content delivery architecture using Amazon CloudFront, AWS’s managed Content Delivery Network (CDN), integrated with other AWS services:

1. Global Caching with 400+ Edge Locations:

   • Configured Amazon CloudFront to cache static and dynamic content at over 400 edge locations worldwide.
   • Reduced latency by serving content from the nearest edge location, improving transfer speeds for global users.

2. Multi-Origin Support:

   • Set up CloudFront with primary and failover origins using AWS S3 for static content and Amazon EC2 for dynamic content.
   • Enabled automatic failover based on HTTP error codes, ensuring high availability during regional outages.

3. Seamless Integration with Route 53:

   • Paired CloudFront with AWS Route 53 to route user requests to the nearest edge location.
   • Preserved a user-friendly domain name, enhancing accessibility and branding.

4. Security and Encryption:

   • Enabled HTTPS with Custom SSL Certificates for secure content delivery.
   • Integrated AWS WAF and AWS Shield to protect against common threats and DDoS attacks, bolstering the platform’s security posture.

5. Lambda@Edge for Personalization:

   • Deployed Lambda@Edge functions to manipulate requests and responses at the edge.
   • Enabled real-time content personalization and reduced backend load by processing logic closer to users.

The team conducted performance testing, simulated DDoS attacks, and optimized cache configurations to ensure reliability and efficiency.

Result

The CloudFront-based architecture delivered significant outcomes:

• 60% Improvement in Content Load Time: Users globally experienced faster page loads and reduced buffering.
• 99.999% Availability: Origin failover and global caching ensured stable content delivery during outages.
• Robust Protection Against DDoS Attacks: Enhanced security posture with AWS WAF and Shield.
• 40% Reduction in Backend Traffic: Offloading to edge locations lowered infrastructure costs.
• Scalable Foundation: Prepared the platform for future global expansion.

This solution has become a benchmark for AMJ Cloud Technologies’ global content delivery projects, showcasing our expertise in CDN optimization.

Technologies Used

• Amazon CloudFront: Delivered content via global edge locations.
• AWS S3: Stored static content.
• Amazon EC2: Hosted dynamic content.
• AWS Route 53: Routed traffic to edge locations.
• AWS WAF: Protected against application-level attacks.
• AWS Shield: Mitigated DDoS attacks.
• Lambda@Edge: Enabled edge-based personalization.
• Custom SSL Certificates: Secured content delivery.

Key Use Cases

This architecture is suitable for:

• SaaS platforms with global user bases requiring low-latency content delivery.
• E-commerce and media platforms serving static and dynamic content.
• Applications needing robust DDoS protection and secure content delivery.

Ready to accelerate your global content delivery? Contact us to explore how AMJ Cloud Technologies can help.

Key Takeaways

This case study demonstrates the transformative impact of Amazon CloudFront in building scalable, secure, and low-latency content delivery systems. By leveraging AWS services, we enhanced user experience, reduced costs, and ensured resilience for a global SaaS platform. AMJ Cloud Technologies is committed to delivering cutting-edge cloud solutions for global scalability.

Architectural Diagram