Use case · CDN & delivery
CDN origin hosting
A CDN origin is the authoritative source a content delivery network pulls content from — the CDN caches and serves it to users, but the origin holds the truth and serves what is not cached. So the origin must be reliable, well-connected, and capable, since its failures affect everything. We host dedicated, EU-sovereign origin infrastructure; the CDN works in front of it.
Key points
- A CDN origin is the authoritative source a content delivery network pulls content from.
- The CDN caches and serves content, but the origin holds the truth and serves cache misses.
- The origin must be reliable and well-connected, since its failures affect everything.
- It holds the full content and serves what the CDN does not cache, including dynamic content.
- We host the dedicated, EU-sovereign origin; the CDN is a complementary service in front of it.
What is a CDN origin, and why does it matter?
A CDN origin is the authoritative source of content that a content delivery network draws from — the server, or servers, that hold the true content, which the delivery network caches and distributes to users. A content delivery network speeds delivery and reduces load by caching content across many locations and serving it to users from nearby, but it must get the content from somewhere: the origin. The origin holds the authoritative content, and the delivery network fetches from it what it needs to cache and serve, so the origin is the foundation the whole delivery rests on, even though the delivery network handles most of the user-facing serving.
The origin matters because the delivery network depends on it: the origin is where the content truly lives, and its reliability, performance, and connectivity affect everything the delivery network serves. If the origin is unavailable, the delivery network cannot fetch content it has not cached, and content cannot be updated; if the origin is slow, fetching from it is slow. So while the delivery network offloads much of the work, the origin remains critical. This page focuses on the origin infrastructure a content delivery network sits in front of; the delivery network itself is a complementary service, and what follows attends to hosting a capable, reliable origin.
The origin's role: the authoritative source
The origin is the authoritative source — the place the true, current content lives — while the delivery network holds cached copies, so the origin is where content is published and updated and where the delivery network turns for anything it does not have. When content is created or changed, it is at the origin that this happens, and the delivery network's caches are populated from the origin, so the origin defines what the content is. The delivery network's copies are caches of the origin's content, which the delivery network serves to reduce load on the origin and reach users quickly, but the origin holds the truth.
This authoritative role means the origin serves the delivery network what it needs — content the delivery network has not cached, or that has changed — so the origin's serving underpins the delivery network's. When the delivery network receives a request for content it does not have cached, it fetches it from the origin, so the origin serves these fetches; and updated content flows from the origin to refresh the caches. The origin thus serves the delivery network reliably as its source. We host origin infrastructure that serves this authoritative role — holding the true content and serving it to the delivery network — so that the delivery network has a dependable source to cache from and serve, which is the foundation of the whole delivery.
Performance and reliability of the origin
The origin's reliability and performance are critical, because the delivery network depends on it, and origin failures or slowness affect everything the delivery network serves. If the origin is down, the delivery network can still serve content it has cached, but it cannot fetch anything new or uncached, and content cannot be updated, so an origin outage degrades or breaks delivery over time; and if the origin is slow to serve the delivery network, fetches from it lag, affecting users who request uncached content. So the origin must be reliable and performant, since it is the source the delivery rests on.
Achieving this means hosting the origin on reliable, performant infrastructure, and for important content, with resilience. Dependable hardware in a reliable datacenter keeps the origin available; adequate performance keeps it serving the delivery network quickly; and for critical content, redundancy guards against origin failure. Some setups add an intermediate caching layer between the origin and the delivery network to reduce load on the origin and shield it. We host origins on reliable, performant infrastructure, with the resilience important content warrants, so that the origin stays available and responsive as the source the delivery network depends on — because the origin's reliability and performance underpin everything the delivery network serves from it.
Bandwidth from origin to the CDN
Although a content delivery network offloads most of the user-facing bandwidth, the origin still needs bandwidth to serve the delivery network — the content it fetches to cache, and the requests the delivery network passes to the origin. The delivery network reduces the origin's bandwidth greatly by serving cached content to users itself, so the origin does not serve every user directly; but the origin does serve the delivery network the content to populate its caches, and the requests for uncached or dynamic content the delivery network forwards. So the origin needs enough bandwidth for this traffic to the delivery network, which, while far less than serving all users directly, is still real.
How much bandwidth the origin needs depends on how much the delivery network caches and how much it must fetch or forward. A high cache-hit ratio, where the delivery network serves most requests from its cache, means the origin serves relatively little; more cache misses or dynamic content passed to the origin means more origin bandwidth. Good, well-connected origin infrastructure ensures the origin can serve the delivery network without becoming a bottleneck. We provide well-connected origin infrastructure with the bandwidth to serve the delivery network — populating its caches and handling forwarded requests — so that the origin feeds the delivery network well, which keeps the whole delivery flowing.
Storage at the origin
The origin holds the full content — everything the delivery network might serve — so it needs the storage capacity for the complete content, which the delivery network only caches parts of. Where the delivery network caches popular or recently-requested content across its locations, the origin holds all of it, since it is the authoritative source from which any content can be fetched. So the origin's storage must have the capacity for the whole content library, which for large content — a video library, a large site's assets, a big file repository — can be substantial, and it must serve that content to the delivery network.
The origin's storage must therefore have both the capacity for the full content and the performance to serve it to the delivery network. Capacity holds everything; performance serves fetches to the delivery network promptly, especially for the content the delivery network requests. For large content libraries, this storage is a real consideration, needing space and speed. We provide origin infrastructure with the storage capacity for the full content and the performance to serve it to the delivery network, so that the origin holds everything the delivery network might need and serves it well — the storage foundation the origin's authoritative role requires, sized to the content it holds.
Dynamic and uncached content
The origin is especially important for dynamic and uncached content, because while static content is cached and served by the delivery network, dynamic content and cache misses are served from the origin. Static content — files that do not change per request — is cached well by the delivery network and served from its locations; but dynamic content, generated per request or per user, is often not cacheable and is served from the origin, as are requests for content the delivery network has not cached. So the origin handles the dynamic and uncached serving, which the delivery network cannot offload, making the origin's capability for this important.
This means the origin must be able to serve the dynamic and uncached requests that reach it, with the compute and performance these need. Dynamic content generation, and serving cache misses, place real work on the origin, so it must be resourced for the dynamic serving and the fetches that come to it. The more dynamic or less cacheable the content, the more the origin serves. We host origin infrastructure resourced for the dynamic and uncached content it must serve — with the compute to generate dynamic content and serve the requests the delivery network forwards — so that the origin handles well the serving the delivery network cannot offload, which is a real part of the origin's role.
Sovereignty for content at the origin
Because the origin holds the authoritative content, where the origin runs governs that content, making the origin's sovereignty important — the true content lives at the origin, so its jurisdiction is the content's jurisdiction. The delivery network's caches are copies distributed for delivery, but the authoritative content resides at the origin, so where the origin is hosted determines the jurisdiction of the content itself. For content that is valuable, licensed, or subject to requirements about where it is held, the origin's location and jurisdiction are therefore a real sovereignty consideration.
VV Internet Hosting is incorporated in the Netherlands, within the EU, so a CDN origin hosted with us runs under European jurisdiction and outside the direct reach of the US CLOUD Act, keeping the authoritative content under European law. For content that should remain sovereign — European content, or content subject to European requirements — hosting the origin in the EU keeps the true content under European jurisdiction, whatever the delivery network's cache distribution. For organisations to whom the sovereignty of their content matters, an EU-hosted origin addresses it at the authoritative source, which is where the content truly lives.
Where VV Internet Hosting fits — and where it does not
We host dedicated, EU-sovereign origin infrastructure for content delivery: reliable, well-connected, performant servers with the storage for the full content and the bandwidth to serve a delivery network, able to serve dynamic and uncached content, in EU datacenters under European jurisdiction. This suits organisations that want a capable, reliable, sovereign origin behind their content delivery network — for a website, a video service, a file repository, or any content served through a delivery network. For that, we are a strong fit, and we will size the origin to the content and the delivery it feeds.
We are clear about our limits. We provide the origin infrastructure the content delivery network sits in front of; we are not a content delivery network ourselves, and the delivery network — with its many locations caching and serving content to users — is a distinct, complementary service that works with the origin we host. If you need a content delivery network, that is a different, complementary service; we provide the origin behind it. We are the dedicated, sovereign, reliable origin infrastructure a delivery network draws from — suited to those who want a capable, EU-sovereign source for their content delivery. If that fits your needs, we can host the origin well.
Related use cases
Questions
CDN origin, answered plainly
Common questions about hosting for CDN origin.
What is a CDN origin?
The authoritative source of content that a content delivery network draws from — the server, or servers, that hold the true content. The delivery network caches and distributes it to users from many locations, but must fetch it from the origin. The origin holds the authoritative content and serves what the delivery network hasn't cached, so it's the foundation the whole delivery rests on.
Why does the origin's reliability matter if the CDN caches content?
Because the delivery network depends on the origin. If the origin is down, the delivery network can still serve cached content but can't fetch anything new or uncached, and content can't be updated — so an origin outage degrades or breaks delivery over time. If the origin is slow, fetches from it lag. The origin is the source the delivery rests on.
Does VV Internet Hosting provide the CDN?
No — we provide the dedicated, EU-sovereign origin infrastructure the content delivery network sits in front of. The delivery network, with its many locations caching and serving content to users, is a distinct, complementary service that works with the origin we host. We provide the capable, reliable, sovereign origin a delivery network draws from, in the EU for content sovereignty.
Planning CDN origin infrastructure?
We host dedicated, EU-sovereign infrastructure sized to your workload — and we will tell you plainly when something else fits better. Tell us what you're building.