If you've heard of Content Delivery Networks (CDN) then you probably either work for one or you've had issues with website performance. Or maybe you believe that there is a potential concern with increasing website traffic and how your application will handle it. First of all, if you're facing the fear of an expanding user base, you've obviously done something right. So how do you avoid being the one left holding the bag while end-users fall off your site in droves? Maybe a CDN is the right way to go...but maybe not.

As a Technical Project Manager for Definition 6, I've had the opportunity to work with clients and projects that require, at least, an initial discussion regarding performance, and others who simply do not. Let me focus on those companies first. If you own a lead generation website that leverages alternatives means for producing sales and receives 2,000 - 5,000 unique visits daily, odds are, you're not going to need advanced performance capabilities. If you are noticing issues, then take a look at your production configuration. Are you on a shared solution? Are you serving up heavy, rich media content? Are your servers out-of-date and unmanaged. Take a closer look and you might find that the potentially expensive CDN solution isn't necessary.

But for website owners that are out of capitol to invest in peformance increasing devices for a struggling system, or for those that wish to provide enhanced, rich media content to users, then look at a CDN as a possible solution to your problems. I recently read a post on www.websitemagazine.com by Peter Prestipino in which he introduced TinyCDN (www.tinycdn.com). If you've researched CDN's, you know how expensive it can be, depending on the size of your content and frequency of delivery. TinyCDN is a good example of a feasible solution from a complexity standpoint and budget concerns.

If you're considering one of these options, hopefully you've taken the time to discover what is causing your website's slow performance. What you don't want to do is spend your budget on improving usability and find out after implementation of those changes that users are experiencing the same degraded performance. Take the time to baseline your performance metrics, from an application and server standpoint. There are numerous tools available that can provide these key metrics. Take a look at your analtyics package as well, what is it telling you? Application can't keep up with continuous requests? Or maybe you've had a dramatic increase in requests to view your new product video. If you're in a pinch, give something like TinyCDN a try. A band-aid solution might not be so bad if it's reasonably priced and avoids the loss of users.