Content Delivery (CDN)

HUC Content Delivery is an India-optimised edge caching layer powered by Varnish and Nginx at our Bangalore datacenter. It sits in front of your origin server (or an HUC S3 bucket) and caches your static assets, pages, and API responses — reducing origin load by up to 90%.

How It Works

User in India → HostupCloud Edge Cache (Varnish/Nginx) → Cache HIT → Served instantly
                                                       → Cache MISS → Your Origin (server or S3 bucket)

1. User makes a request — the request hits the HostupCloud edge in Bangalore.
2. Cache HIT — if the content is cached, Varnish serves it in microseconds. No request reaches your origin.
3. Cache MISS — if the content is not cached, Nginx fetches it from your origin, caches the response, and serves it to the user. Subsequent requests are served from cache.

Features

Varnish Cache Layer

Industry-standard Varnish Cache sits in front of your origin, serving cached responses in microseconds. Typical cache hit rates of 85–95% for static content.

Nginx Reverse Proxy

Nginx handles HTTP/2, gzip/Brotli compression, SSL termination, and request routing before passing uncached requests to your origin.

S3 Bucket as Origin

Use a HostupCloud Object Storage bucket directly as your CDN origin. Upload files to S3, get a delivery URL instantly — no web server needed. Ideal for serving images, videos, fonts, and downloadable files.

Smart Cache Invalidation

Purge individual URLs, path patterns (e.g. /images/*), or your entire cache instantly via the dashboard or REST API — no waiting for TTL expiry.

• Single URL purge — under 1 second
• Wildcard path purge — e.g. /blog/*
• Full cache purge — one click or single API call

Custom Cache Rules

Define cache TTLs, bypass rules, and Vary headers per URL pattern. Full VCL (Varnish Configuration Language) access for advanced users.

Stale-While-Revalidate

Serve stale cached content while fetching a fresh copy in the background. Zero downtime even when your origin is slow or briefly unavailable.

DDoS & Bot Protection

Rate limiting, IP reputation filtering, and volumetric DDoS protection at the edge — malicious traffic is dropped before reaching your origin.

Free SSL / TLS

Free SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt, auto-renewed before expiry. You can also upload a custom certificate. HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect supported.

Real-time Analytics

Live dashboard showing:

• Cache hit/miss ratio
• Bandwidth served
• Request rates
• Top cached URLs

Updated every 30 seconds.

Pricing

Simple pay-as-you-go pricing. No commitments, no plans to choose from — just pay for what you deliver.

• All prices exclude GST (18%)
• Billing is monthly, pay-as-you-go — no minimum commitment
• Your site is never taken offline — usage is billed at the end of the month

Pricing Examples

What's Included (All Usage Levels)

• Varnish + Nginx edge caching
• Free SSL certificates (Let's Encrypt, auto-renewed)
• HTTP/2 and gzip/Brotli compression
• Cache purge via dashboard and REST API
• Custom cache rules (VCL)
• Real-time analytics (cache hit/miss, bandwidth, top URLs)
• DDoS and bot protection
• Stale-while-revalidate

Getting Started

Step 1: Choose Your Origin

You have two options:

Option A — Your own server: Any HTTP/HTTPS origin works — Apache, Nginx, Node.js, WordPress, Shopify, Laravel, or any web server.

Option B — HUC S3 bucket: Create a bucket at storage.hostupcloud.com, upload your files, and use the bucket endpoint as the CDN origin. No web server required.

Step 2: Create a Distribution

1. Log in to your HostupCloud dashboard.
2. Navigate to Content Delivery → Create Distribution.
3. Enter your origin URL (your server address or S3 bucket endpoint).
4. Configure your custom domain (optional) and cache settings.
5. Click Create — you'll receive a CNAME endpoint.

Step 3: Update Your DNS

Point your domain (or subdomain like cdn.yoursite.com) to the CNAME endpoint provided:

cdn.yoursite.com  CNAME  your-distribution.cdn.hostupcloud.com

Step 4: You're Live

Varnish and Nginx begin caching your static assets on the first request. No code changes needed — it works as a transparent reverse proxy.

What Gets Cached

Cached by Default

• Images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, WebP, AVIF)
• CSS and JavaScript files
• Fonts (WOFF, WOFF2, TTF, EOT)
• PDFs and downloadable files
• Video and audio files

Cacheable with Custom Rules

• HTML pages (set TTL per URL pattern)
• API responses (JSON, XML)
• Dynamic content with stable outputs

Never Cached (by Default)

• Authenticated/personalized pages
• POST, PUT, DELETE requests
• Responses with Cache-Control: no-store or private
• Pages with Set-Cookie headers

Cache Purge API

Purge cached content programmatically using the REST API:

Purge a Single URL

curl -X POST https://api.hostupcloud.com/cdn/purge \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://cdn.yoursite.com/images/logo.png"}'

Purge by Path Pattern

curl -X POST https://api.hostupcloud.com/cdn/purge \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"pattern": "/blog/*"}'

Purge Entire Cache

curl -X POST https://api.hostupcloud.com/cdn/purge-all \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

You can also purge from the dashboard under Content Delivery → Your Distribution → Purge Cache.

Using S3 as CDN Origin

This is the recommended setup for pure static asset delivery with no server required.

Setup

1. Create an S3 bucket at storage.hostupcloud.com — see Object Storage docs.
2. Upload your files (images, CSS, JS, fonts, videos) to the bucket.
3. Create a CDN distribution with the S3 bucket endpoint as the origin:

   Origin: https://s3.hostupcloud.com/your-bucket-name

4. Point your DNS to the CDN CNAME.
5. Files are now cached and served from the edge.

Benefits

• No server to manage — just upload files to S3 and they're delivered via the edge cache
• Cost-effective — S3 storage (₹0.65/GiB) + CDN delivery (₹1.50/GiB), no compute costs. First 50 GiB CDN free.
• Reliable — S3's 11-nines durability with edge cache performance
• Simple updates — upload new files to S3 and purge the cache

CMS Compatibility

Content Delivery works with any origin:

Performance

Limitations

• Single edge location — Bangalore datacenter only (not a global CDN)
• Best for Indian traffic — users outside India will route to Bangalore, adding latency
• No edge compute — no serverless functions at the edge
• No image optimization — images are served as-is from origin/cache

SLA

See Support & SLA for credit schedules and claim procedures.

Next Steps

• Set up Object Storage (S3) to use as a CDN origin
• Review Network & Connectivity for bandwidth and peering info
• Check Security & Compliance for DDoS protection details
• Need help? Open a support ticket