Practice Test Geeks(CDN) Content Delivery Network Certification Practice Test
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Architecture & Components Flashcards

7 cards from real CDN practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.

Read the first 7 Architecture & Components flashcards as text

  1. What is the purpose of 'Edge Side Includes' (ESI) in CDN architecture?

    Answer: To assemble page fragments with different cache TTLs at the edge before delivery

    ESI allows the CDN to cache page components independently and stitch them together at the edge, so personalized and cached sections coexist.

  2. Which TCP optimization technique do CDN edges commonly use to improve throughput for users with high-latency connections?

    Answer: TCP Fast Open and larger initial congestion windows

    TCP Fast Open and increased initial congestion windows reduce the number of round trips needed before the connection reaches full throughput.

  3. In a CDN context, what is 'edge compute' or 'serverless at the edge' primarily used for?

    Answer: Executing lightweight request/response logic (e.g., A/B testing, auth, personalization) at PoPs

    Edge compute platforms (e.g., Cloudflare Workers, Fastly Compute) run small scripts at PoPs to customize responses without a round trip to the origin.

  4. What does 'Cache-Control: s-maxage' specifically control in a CDN environment?

    Answer: How long shared (proxy/CDN) caches may store a response, independently of browser cache TTL

    s-maxage overrides max-age for shared caches like CDNs, letting operators set different CDN and browser TTLs in the same header.

  5. Which CDN feature allows operators to instantly remove a cached object from all edge nodes worldwide?

    Answer: Surrogate-key / cache tag purging

    Surrogate keys (or cache tags) group related objects so a single API call purges all tagged content across the entire CDN fleet instantly.

  6. What is the significance of 'PoP diversity' when designing CDN redundancy?

    Answer: Spreading PoPs across different ISPs and buildings ensures no single outage eliminates all local coverage

    PoP diversity across carriers and facilities means a fiber cut, power failure, or ISP outage at one PoP doesn't remove CDN coverage for a region.

  7. How does a CDN typically handle 'range requests' (e.g., HTTP Range: bytes=0-1023) for large files?

    Answer: It fetches and caches the full file from origin, then serves the requested byte range from cache

    Most CDNs fetch and cache the complete object on first miss, then fulfill byte-range requests from the cached copy to maximize cache utility.

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