Dynamic web acceleration: What is it (and how does it work)

Introduction

Internet speeds have come a long way since the days of dial-up connections. As a result of this evolution, user expectations have also become more demanding. This is especially true in the case of mobile device users. 

In other words, users expect websites to load instantly, and those that don’t, have to pay the price.

If the website load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of a user bouncing off the website increases by over 32%. The first five seconds are critical. For every 1-second-delay occurring during the first five seconds, conversion rates drop by 4.42%. 

Clearly, providing users with a lightning-fast and smooth experience on websites is crucial to business success. However, there are many challenges associated with speeding up a website. Dynamic site acceleration is a powerful tool to help you overcome these challenges.

What is dynamic web acceleration?

Modern websites use dynamic content and additional applications to deliver personalised and engaging user experiences. However, the problem here is that standard internet protocols were not designed to support the delivery of such website elements. 

As a result, the use of dynamic content and additional applications, while important, can slow down your website. A dynamic site acceleration service solves this problem. A dynamic site acceleration solution allows websites to speed up by delivering dynamic content and applications through a centralised infrastructure. This service is usually offered by a content delivery network or CDN.

With the use of dynamic site acceleration, websites can deliver high-quality experiences to users, regardless of where they are located. Let’s find out how this incredible technology works.

How does dynamic web acceleration work?

To understand how dynamic site acceleration works, we have to first understand how a CDN works. 

A content delivery network (CDN), as the name suggests, is a network of surrogate servers located all over the world. Top CDN companies have hundreds of thousands of servers located in multiple countries. 

When a user types a URL into their browser, the browser, instead of calling to the standard hosting server, calls for an edge server located close to the location of the user. This edge server is a part of the content delivery network. Since the geographical distance between the user and the server is reduced, the website is able to serve content quickly.

However, things become a little more complex in the case of dynamic content. Since dynamic content is personalised for every user, repeated communication with the origin server of the website is required, which may not be located close to the end-user. As a result of the geographical distance, the delivery of content may become slow and problematic.

This is where a dynamic site acceleration (DSA) solution becomes relevant.

By using advanced DNS mapping, a DSA solution reduces the variation in the round-trip time of the content. As a result, the transport of data packets becomes faster and more efficient. By using better TCP algorithms, a DSA solution improves the TCP throughput and minimises the loss of packets. Finally, the DSA service improves the reliability of the connection with the use of route optimization packages.

As a result, the delivery of dynamic content is sped up and the availability of applications is improved.

Why is dynamic web acceleration important?

As mentioned earlier, modern consumers expect digital experiences and websites to load instantly and be immersive. However, delivering immersive dynamic content and applications quickly is a challenge.

Dynamic web acceleration is the most effective and economical way to make immersive experiences available quickly and reliable to the end-user.

In other words, using dynamic web acceleration is an important aspect of providing users with a delightful user experience. Customer-centric brands must realise the importance of providing their prospects and customers with such experiences.

Better digital experiences will ultimately lead to more engaged website visitors and improved conversion rates.

Who should use dynamic web acceleration?

Any company that serves customers or users present in multiple locations across the globe with dynamic content experiences on its website can derive great benefits from DSA solutions. 

A good example of such a business can be a business website that allows users to ‘try on’ sunglasses in a digital environment by uploading a photograph of their face. Such an experience can be made seamless and smooth with the help of a DSA solution.

Similarly, SaaS businesses can benefit immensely from the implementation of a DSA solution. Since most SaaS services use dynamic content and are hosted on the cloud, DSA can help them ensure that their customer’s experience of using their SaaS solution is hassle-free and lightning-fast. 

The benefits of implementing a DSA solution are two-fold. Firstly, as discussed previously, dynamic web acceleration helps improve the user’s experience on your website. 

The other benefit of a DSA solution is its cost-effectiveness. In order to deliver a seamless experience to a distributed audience without using a DSA solution, a business will have to set up different data centres close to where their audience is located.

However, setting up and maintaining multiple data centres that store sensitive information can be expensive and a huge hassle. 

In comparison, a DSA solution costs a fraction of the cost of setting up multiple data centres and provides incredible results in terms of website performance. The best DSA solutions also offer multiple layers of protection to keep your mission-critical data secure.

How is it different than front-end optimization

A lot of people confuse DSA with front-end development as both are targeted at improving the delivery of online content. While both do have some similar and overlapping elements, DSA and front-end development work very differently from each other. 

While front-end development focuses on changing the actual content to optimise user experience, DSA is aimed at improving the delivery of the content without making any changes. 

Front-end development reduces the number of objects needed to download a website and decreases the total amount of traffic with techniques like device-aware content serving, minification of code, and resource consolidation.

While these techniques are effective, they demand a lot of work and there is also a significant scope of degrading the quality of user experience by serving incorrectly changed content.

Since DSA doesn’t make any changes to the content, there are no such risks involved with the implementation of a DSA solution. For websites that use dynamic content, DSA is the better solution. 

Having said that, in the case of dynamic content, front-end development techniques can be used in conjunction with DSA on the origin server to further optimise the delivery of content.

Try reliable (and flexible) CDN solutions

CDN solutions like DSA are a great way to improve the experience on your website and, in turn, enjoy the result improvements in your website conversion rates. The benefits of the implementation of an SDA solution can be directly seen in the bottom line of the company.  Having said that, in order to enjoy all these benefits, it is important that businesses choose a reliable CDN solution, like the Tata Communications CDN solution. Besides being reliable, Tata Communications CDN solution is also flexible, making it an affordable choice for businesses of all sizes.