What exactly is it that I do?

So I've been getting a lot of questions from people lately asking exactly what it is I do now. I work for a company called Highwinds (that none of my friends have ever heard of) as a Business Development Representative, helping the Sales Team reach possible customers of our CDN (another thing none of my friends have ever heard of).

So what is a CDN?

1. A content delivery network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers (network) that deliver webpages and other Web content to a user based on the geographic locations of the user, the origin of the webpage and a content delivery server.

... and what does that mean?

In lay-mans terms CDN transfers the data hosted at the origin to the eyeballs of its viewers. An origin is anywhere that the data you want your users to see is stored.

So, who needs CDN?

It can be just about anyone who has a website. The more traffic you have, and/or the larger your data and files are the more important it becomes to the functionality of your site. CDN can also be used to deliver other content, like game downloads and software updates more quickly. Most likely if you're downloading something from the internet you're using a CDN (if you aren't waiting 15 minutes for a <1 GB file)

Think of the internet as a spider web of servers (or pops) that are all connected (but not always directly) When you don't have CDN on your side the information can sort of just... bounce around in digi-space trying to get from origin to end-user. With a CDN it takes the most direct route available.

As a Business Development Representative it's my job to connect Businesses to a Content Delivery solution that is going to work for them.

I hope that helps clarify what it is I do behind the screens in my office all day.