Overview

Edge Application is a powerful edge computing platform built on a serverless architecture and deeply integrated with CDNetworks’ robust content delivery network (CDN). It provides a high-performance, scalable serverless execution environment, enabling you to rapidly write code and deploy it in seconds. Harnessing the power of CDNetworks’ global edge network, you can process real-time content, customize edge logic, and build a variety of other edge applications. Simply write your business logic using the platform’s supported language, and your code will run efficiently and reliably on CDNetworks’ globally distributed edge servers. Click to explore our global network map.

As a serverless service built on CDNetworks’ CDN infrastructure, Edge Application breaks free from traditional application limitations, granting you access to a wider range of CDN edge capabilities. This empowers you to easily build diverse edge services and enhance your business competitiveness. With Edge Application, you can focus solely on developing and innovating your business logic without worrying about the complexities of managing underlying infrastructure.

Product Features

Edge Application comprises two core components: Edge Cloud Apps and Edge KV Storage. These provide your applications with flexible computing capabilities and dependable edge data storage, respectively.

Edge Cloud Apps (ECA)

Edge Cloud Apps (ECA) provides a high-performance edge function compute runtime environment powered by the V8 engine. This enables you to run custom code on CDNetworks’ globally distributed CDN edge PoPs. By writing and deploying lightweight functions, you can process HTTP requests, manipulate data, and build diverse edge applications, including:

• Custom Content Routing and Redirection: Dynamically route and redirect content based on request characteristics to personalize the user experience.
• Dynamic Content Generation: Generate dynamic content on-the-fly based on user requests, enabling personalized recommendations, A/B testing, and more.
• Custom Security Protections: Implement custom security rules and access control policies to safeguard your website and data from malicious attacks, such as web scraping and unauthorized access.
• Edge Rendering: Perform dynamic content rendering at the edge, improving user experience and reducing the load on your origin server.
• Log Processing: Customize log recording and processing methods to capture specific events and analyze user behavior.

Edge Cloud Apps supports a native JavaScript runtime environment and the standard Service Worker API, ensuring seamless compatibility for front-end applications without any modifications. Additionally, it supports running code written in other programming languages like C, C++, Rust, and Go by compiling them into WebAssembly (WASM) files.

Edge KV Storage

Edge KV Storage is a globally distributed key-value data storage service that provides a low-latency, highly stable edge database. This database is particularly well-suited for scenarios involving frequent reads and infrequent writes.

You can manage your Edge KV data flexibly, securely, and efficiently using APIs, the console, or Edge Cloud Apps Functions. Edge KV fulfills the demand for low-latency and high-stability data access. Common data stored in Edge KV includes:

• User session data: Store user login status, shopping cart information, and more.
• Configuration information: Store application configuration parameters to enable dynamic configuration updates.
• Cache data: Cache frequently accessed data, such as API responses, to improve application performance.

How it Works

CDNetworks Edge Application streamlines the development and deployment of applications at the edge. Edge Cloud Apps integrates a single-page Cloud IDE, supporting both JavaScript and WebAssembly (WASM) programming. This intuitive IDE allows you to write and test code with ease, and seamlessly interact with Edge KV storage. Through flexible function trigger configurations and automated deployment strategies, you can build high-performance, scalable edge applications that interact seamlessly with your origin and front-end services.

Why Choose CDNetworks Edge Application?

Focus on Your Business, Not Operations

By adopting the Serverless model, you only need to focus on writing core business logic code without worrying about managing underlying infrastructure such as load balancers, gateway configurations, and hardware performance tuning. This significantly reduces the complexity of building your service architecture and lowers operational costs.

Global Deployment, One-Click Reach

Edge applications run on over 2800+ CDN edge PoPs distributed globally, eliminating the limitations of specific regions or clusters. When a client makes a request, the system automatically selects the edge PoP closest to the user to execute your code. This ensures rapid computation and response times, effectively reducing network latency and improving user experience.

Near-Data Processing, Lightning-Fast Reads

Store lightweight content directly on edge PoPs and deploy stateful applications. When data is written to Edge KV storage, it’s automatically and quickly synchronized to Edge KV PoPs worldwide, ensuring high availability and rapid data access while enhancing security and efficiency.

Rapid Development, Tailored to Your Needs

The platform supports the standard Web Service Worker API and provides a rich library of pre-built templates, enabling you to quickly build custom functions to suit your unique business needs. Each function operates and deploys independently, allowing for rapid development and deployment cycles with code taking effect within seconds of being written.

Stable, Reliable, and Cost-Effective

Monitor your application’s runtime status in real-time through the console. Configure function execution strategy with flexibility and take advantage of the pay-as-you-go billing model for a cost-effective solution with transparent billing practices.

Best Practices and Use Cases

Edge Application empowers developers with exceptional flexibility and control, enabling you to build faster, more secure, and intelligent edge applications. Choose the optimal solutions based on your specific business requirements.

Accelerate Your Web Experience

• E-commerce, Finance, and Media Websites: Customize ECA functions to implement device adaptation, request merging, content rewriting, and third-party external content optimization, among other features, to enhance page load speeds, improve user experience, and reduce bounce rates.
• Portals and News Websites: Utilize ECA functions and Edge KV to implement edge rendering, site building, and post caching to boost SEO performance, increase website traffic, and elevate brand visibility.
• Global Enterprises: Implement page and image adaptation through ECA functions, providing a personalized experience and optimal access for users in different regions.

Build a Robust Security Perimeter

• Resource Hotlink Protection: Leverage ECA functions to configure secure and flexible anti-hotlinking rules for resources like videos and audio files, effectively preventing unauthorized access and protecting your valuable assets.
• Custom Authentication: For gaming, connected vehicles, and similar scenarios, utilize ECA functions to customize authentication logic, optimizing authentication request volume and duration for both improved security and user experience.
• Anti-Crawler Protection: Working in conjunction with origin anti-crawler functionality, ECA functions can leverage Edge KV to store blacklists and rapidly identify and block crawlers at the edge, protecting your valuable website data.
• Content Security: Utilize Edge KV to store sensitive word lists and blacklists/whitelists, along with ECA functions to proactively block malicious content and prevent tampering, ensuring content security for government, news, e-commerce, and social media platforms.

Reduce Origin Server Load

• Handle Traffic Spikes: Implement a Virtual Waiting Room using ECA functions and Edge KV to effectively manage traffic surges during events like e-commerce promotions or new product launches, preventing origin server overload.
• Optimize Origin Server Load: Employ ECA functions to implement customized intelligent routing and performance testing, optimizing origin server load and enhancing website stability and reliability.
• Origin Data Analysis: Deploy ECA functions and Edge KV to collect client and server-side information for data aggregation and analysis, providing data support for optimizing origin server operations.