Amazon CloudFront consulting for faster US sites

Amazon CloudFront is the content delivery network (CDN) from AWS. It keeps cached copies of your website files, images, videos and API responses at edge locations around the world, so visitors are served from a location near them instead of from your origin server. It also handles TLS, works with AWS WAF and can run small pieces of code at the edge.

On pay-as-you-go, every month includes 1 TB of data transfer out and 10 million HTTP or HTTPS requests free. In the United States, Mexico and Canada the next 9 TB is $0.085 per GB, and HTTPS requests are $0.0100 per 10,000. Fetches from AWS origins such as S3 are free. AWS also sells flat-rate plans per distribution: Free at $0, Pro at $15, Business at $200 and Premium at $1,000 a month, each bundling WAF, DDoS protection and Route 53 DNS with no overage charges.

Both are capable CDNs. CloudFront usually wins when your origin runs on AWS, because fetches from AWS origins are free, access is controlled with IAM and Origin Access Control, and the cost sits on your AWS bill. Cloudflare can be the simpler pick when it already runs your DNS and security and your origin is outside AWS. We look at where your origin lives and what your team already manages before recommending either.

Use Origin Access Control (OAC). The bucket blocks public access, and a bucket policy allows reads only from your CloudFront distribution. Visitors can reach files through the CloudFront domain but not through the S3 URL. OAC is what AWS recommends now over the older Origin Access Identity.

It depends on the content. Sites made mostly of images, scripts and styles can run well above 90 percent, while API-heavy apps sit much lower. Low ratios usually come from query strings, cookies or headers in the cache key that do not change the response, or from TTLs that are too short. We tune the cache policy per path to raise it.

An invalidation tells CloudFront to drop cached copies of a path, such as /images/logo.png or /products/*, so the next request goes to the origin. The first 1,000 paths each month are free, then it is $0.005 per path. For frequent releases we prefer versioned file names, which avoid invalidations for most assets.

CloudFront Functions are lightweight JavaScript that runs on viewer requests and responses, good for redirects, header changes and simple URL rewrites, at $0.10 per million invocations. Lambda@Edge supports Node.js and Python, can run longer, call the network and act on origin requests and responses, at $0.60 per million requests plus duration. We use Functions first and move up only when the job needs it.

Yes. Even when a response cannot be cached, the request enters AWS’s network at a nearby edge location, TLS is finished close to the visitor and the connection to your origin is kept warm. Short TTLs of a few seconds can also help busy API responses that many users share.

Every CloudFront distribution gets AWS Shield Standard at no extra charge, which defends against common network and transport layer attacks. For application attacks you add AWS WAF rules and rate limits. The flat-rate plans bundle WAF and DDoS protection into the monthly price.

It depends on how many domains, origins and cache rules are involved. We test on a temporary hostname first, then switch DNS in a window you choose, with the old setup kept ready for rollback. The dates for each step go into the signed BRD before any change is made.