CDN PoP Locations | NOC.org Support

The NOC CDN operates from a distributed network of points of presence (PoPs) located in data centers around the world. Each PoP contains edge servers that cache and serve content to visitors in the surrounding region. The more PoPs a CDN has, and the closer they are to end users, the lower the latency and the faster the content delivery.

What Is a PoP?

A point of presence (PoP) is a physical location where NOC deploys edge servers within a data center. Each PoP is connected to major internet exchange points (IXPs) and transit providers, ensuring high-speed connectivity. When a visitor requests content from your site, the request is routed to the nearest PoP, where the content is either served from cache or fetched from your origin server.

Each PoP is capable of handling CDN caching, WAF filtering, DDoS mitigation, and DNS resolution. This means security and performance processing happen at the edge, as close to the visitor as possible.

Global Edge Locations

NOC maintains PoPs across major regions to provide low-latency coverage for visitors worldwide:

• North America: Multiple locations across the United States and Canada, covering East Coast, West Coast, and central regions.
• Europe: Edge servers in Western and Eastern Europe, including locations in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, and other key markets.
• Asia-Pacific: PoPs serving visitors in Japan, Singapore, Australia, India, and surrounding regions.
• South America: Edge locations providing coverage for Brazil and other Latin American markets.

The exact number and locations of PoPs are continuously expanding as NOC adds capacity in response to traffic patterns and customer demand.

Anycast Routing

NOC uses Anycast routing to direct visitors to the nearest PoP automatically. With Anycast, the same IP address is announced from every PoP in the network. When a visitor's device sends a request to that IP address, internet routing protocols (BGP) direct the traffic to the closest PoP based on network topology.

Anycast provides two key benefits:

• Automatic failover: If a PoP goes offline, BGP routing automatically redirects traffic to the next closest PoP. There is no DNS TTL delay because the IP address does not change — only the routing path changes.
• DDoS absorption: Attack traffic is distributed across all PoPs in the network rather than concentrated at a single location. This allows the network to absorb large volumetric attacks by spreading the load.

How PoPs Are Selected

When a visitor makes a request to your site through the NOC CDN, the PoP selection happens in two stages:

1. DNS resolution: The visitor's DNS resolver queries NOC's Anycast DNS. Because the DNS servers use Anycast, the query is answered by the nearest DNS PoP, which returns an Anycast IP address for the CDN edge.
2. TCP connection: The visitor's device connects to the Anycast IP. BGP routing directs the TCP connection to the nearest CDN PoP based on the shortest network path. This is determined by the network topology between the visitor's ISP and NOC's edge network.

The selected PoP is not always the one that is geographically closest. BGP routing optimizes for network hops and path quality, which means a visitor might be routed to a PoP that is slightly farther away geographically but has a faster network path. In practice, Anycast routing delivers the lowest latency connection available.

PoP Redundancy and Reliability

Each NOC PoP is designed for high availability:

• Redundant servers: Multiple edge servers at each PoP handle traffic load and provide failover within the location.
• Multiple upstream providers: Each PoP connects to several transit providers and IXPs, ensuring that no single network failure takes the PoP offline.
• Health monitoring: NOC continuously monitors each PoP for performance and availability. If a PoP shows degraded performance, traffic is automatically rerouted.

Impact on Performance

The distribution of PoPs directly affects your site's performance metrics. Sites using the NOC CDN typically see improvements in:

• Time to First Byte (TTFB): Reduced by serving content from a nearby edge server rather than a distant origin.
• Page load time: Static assets load faster from the nearest PoP, accelerating overall page rendering.
• Core Web Vitals: Faster delivery of CSS, JavaScript, and images contributes to better Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Input Delay (FID) scores.

For details on how content is cached at each PoP, see the CDN Overview documentation.