# Amazon CloudFront, an Awesome CDN
> Markdown version of https://brajeshwar.com/2008/amazon-cloudfront-awesome-cdn/ — 2008-11-19
Amazon announced CloudFront just about a day back and we were extremely excited that we would be able to serve files faster to our users.
I won't detail about Amazon CloudFront as their blog have done a good job on that -- Distribute Your Content With Amazon CloudFront.
What our team did was some simple test to see the speed and response time for our new Amazon CloudFront CDN-ed content.
The Test and the Result (INDIA)
First, we created a distribution for our AWS S3 bucket and put a file in the bucket. We then download the file from the CloudFront
`$ wget http://mydist.cloudfront.net/wallpaper.jpg`
We got an average speed of 60 KBps! :-)
Next, we tried downloading the same file directly from our S3 bucket
`$ wget http://mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com/wallpaper.jpg`
Then, we saw that we got an average speed of 10 KBps :-(
So, we decided to figure out which CloudFront server were we redirected to from India. We did a simple `dig` on our CloudFront URL
`$ dig mydist.cloudfront.net`
And look for yourself --
```shell
;; QUESTION SECTION:
mydist.cloudfront.net. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.211
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.216
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.213
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.108
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.100
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.233
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.201
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.55.35
```
Hmm. Let's find out where the servers are really located ;)
`$ traceroute 216.137.55.211`
Be ready to be surprised.
```shell
1 192.168.0.254 (192.168.0.254) 1.538 ms 1.911 ms 2.421 ms
2 * * *
3 dsl-mum-erx-238.127.144.59.airtelbroadband.in (59.144.127.238) 39.002 ms 40.846 ms 41.552 ms
4 125.18.13.137 (125.18.13.137) 44.072 ms 44.514 ms 44.787 ms
5 125.21.167.25 (125.21.167.25) 77.995 ms 80.059 ms 80.509 ms
6 p4-2-0-0.r01.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.12.225) 110.669 ms 94.407 ms 94.981 ms
7 ge-0-0-0.r00.sngpsi02.sg.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.33) 103.501 ms 103.697 ms 104.116 ms
8 * p1-1-1-3.r02.newthk01.hk.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.129) 136.561 ms 138.106 ms
9 ae-4.r20.newthk01.hk.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.246) 138.550 ms 139.714 ms 140.381 ms
10 po-2.a05.newthk01.hk.ra.gin.ntt.net (203.131.240.174) 144.352 ms 145.710 ms 146.653 ms
11 203.131.243.162 (203.131.243.162) 150.713 ms 151.553 ms 153.725 ms
12 216.137.55.211 (216.137.55.211) 156.607 ms 128.642 ms 129.524 ms
```
Neat, from India to Hong Kong in 12 hops :-)
The Test and the Result (US)
Cool. We then decided to see how better is it for people in the United States by using a server located physically in the US.
`$ dig mydist.cloudfront.net`
```shell
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.110
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.157
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.171
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.46
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.224
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.65
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.77
mydist.cloudfront.net. 60 IN A 216.137.39.225
```
`$ traceroute 216.137.39.110`
```shell
1 209-20-80-2.slicehost.net (209.20.80.2) 0.000 ms 0.000 ms 0.000 ms
2 209.20.79.225 (209.20.79.225) 0.000 ms 0.000 ms 0.000 ms
3 ge-6-13-115.car1.StLouis1.Level3.net (4.79.132.225) 0.000 ms 0.000 ms 0.000 ms
4 ae-11-11.car2.StLouis1.Level3.net (4.69.132.186) 0.000 ms 4.001 ms 0.000 ms
5 AMAZONCOM.car2.StLouis1.Level3.net (4.53.162.66) 0.000 ms 0.000 ms 0.000 ms
6 216.137.39.110 (216.137.39.110) 0.000 ms 0.000 ms 0.000 ms
```
Wow! Only 6 hops :-)
So, as you can see CloudFront really works as a good Content Delivery Network and is extremely affordable, no entry cost at all. Check out their blog.