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To Microsoft CDN or not to Microsoft CDN, ‘tis the Question

Is it worth using a Content Delivery Network (CDN), or not? Especially one hosted by Microsoft?

Recently Microsoft took a play from Google’s playbook and announced that they were going to host the jQuery library (version 1.3.2) on their CDN network (they also host the superb jQuery validation library). For more background on CDN’s, check out the Wikipedia entry. Needless to say, CDN’s are a good thing for developers.

Basically, a CDN is a super-efficient way to serve static files, and Google’s been doing it for free for a few years. Most developers download the library directly, and this benefits the end user, because the page effects load that much faster. You can also use various cloud services to construct your own CDN. However, there’s a tradeoff if you’re going to use a sponsored solution.

You’re at the mercy of said CDN, and depending on your personality, this could be a bad thing or this could be a good thing. If you’re of the paranoid bent, relying on someone else to serve the library is a good cause for many sleepless nights - If the Google or Microsoft servers go down, your applications will go down as well. That’s why it’s good practice to keep a local copy of the library on hand as a back-up. However, unless you have an easy way to reference this backup library, you’re still screwed. However, if you’re more optimistic, you’re okay with this scenario. I mean, how likely is it that a CDN network would be compromised, much less one hosted by Google and Microsoft?

I’ve been using Google’s jQuery CDN for our school’s website over a year without a problem and I’ll continue to do so. What’s your take on it? Which is better, Microsoft’s or Google’s CDN?

Posted by Jesse on 11/07 at 03:48 AM

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