CDNs are collections of geographically distributed caches that place content closer to end-users to improve performance and reduce traffic on backbone networks. Placing CDN caches inside ISPs networks - embedded caches - has become increasingly popular, but it also adds complexity to operating caches managed by other networks inside the borders.

CDNs use different methods to map end-users to caches, such as BGP , DNS server mapping, and anycast.

According to the author, ISPs should consider regionalizing IP addresses and deploying caches strategically to reduce traffic on the network edge.