CDN for Games and Assets: TTFB Declines Worldwide

1) What is "fast" for iGaming and where we win

Critical UX points:

• Lobby and media (game icons, previews, banners) - instant render;
• Starting a slot/live table - minimum redirects and overloads;
• Feeds/lists (game catalogs, rules, translations) - cheap cached JSON;
• Video/broadcast (trailers, HLS/DASH for streams);
• Static front assets (JS/CSS/fonts).

Targets (realistic with global coverage):

• Global TTFB: ≤ 150-250 ms per static, ≤ 300-400 ms per speaker cached on edge;
• Time-to-First-Spin (TTFS): ≤ 800 ms to the first request of the provider (after rendering the lobby);
• p95 icon download: ≤ 200ms.

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2) CDN layer architecture: performance pie

1. Anycast PoP worldwide: auto-selection of the nearest site, decrease in RTT.

2. Tiered cache + Origin Shield: PoP → a regional cache → 1-2 shield nodes before origin to extinguish miss storms.

3. Multi-origin: asset-asset or asset-standby (EU/US/APAC), health checks and smart routing.

4. Edge functions: easy logic to origin (A/B, geo, signatures, URL/header normalization).

5. Private backbone CDN: passes the "wild" Internet core in distant regions.

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3) Cash strategies: what, where and by how much

Principles: immutable where possible, short TTL for dynamics, SWR (stale-while-revalidate) for bursts, deterministic keys.

TTL matrix (example):

Important: For API-GETs that you cache, use Surrogate-Control (for CDN) and short 'Cache-Control' (for browser) to prevent the browser from stagnating.

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4) Cache headers and keys: minimize misses

Cache key = 'scheme + host + path + normalized query + variations'.

Normalize the order of query parameters, throw out the "garbage" ('utm _', 'fbclid', etc.).

Header options: 'Accept-Encoding' (Brotli/Zstd/Gzip), 'Accept' (AVIF/WebP/JPEG), 'DPR' (Client Hints), 'Accept-Language.'

Heading reference (for immutable assets):

Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable
ETag: "sha256-<hash>"
Content-Encoding: br # and/or zstd/gzip, see below
Vary: Accept-Encoding, Accept, DPR, Save-Data

For cached JSON (directories):

Cache-Control: public, max-age=60, stale-while-revalidate=300
Surrogate-Control: max-age=300, stale-while-revalidate=600

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5) Compression and formats: fewer bytes - below TTFB

HTTP/3 + QUIC reduces handshake latency, is resistant to packet loss.

Brotli for text assets (JS/CSS/JSON), levels 5-7 (CPU balance/benefits).

Zstd (if CDN supported) for JSON/NDJSON is excellent compression at low latency.

WebP/AVIF for images (auto-fit by'Accept ').

Range requests for video/large files so as not to pull everything.

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6) Delivery via edge: Prefetch and smart lobby

Prefetch from the lobby: as soon as the game card is in the visible area, load the icon, rules, small "manivest" of the provider.

Early Hints (103) and 'preconnect' to CDN hosts.

Edge-function-warm-up: on the event "put the game in the top" - warm up top icons and configs in the nearest PoP markets promo.

Adaptive payload: send lightweight lists (10-20 games) on a mobile in 3G/Save-Data.

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7) Origin Shield and defence against "miss storms"

Turn on deduplicated fetch: one trip to origin with hundreds of parallel misses (coalescing).

Jitter TTL (± 20%) for "simultaneous" expiration of a large number of keys.

Canary releases: Roll out new catalogs/rules on 5-10% edge traffic to a global disabled person.

Negative-cache (very short, 1-5 s) on '404/204' for tournaments before the start, so as not to "hammer" origin.

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8) Geo-constraints, licenses and security

Geo-fencing on edge for off-license countries is a quick and neutral response (403).

Signed URLs/cookies for private content (VIP materials, bonus resources).

Protection against hotlink and referrers, WAF rules on PoP for API-GET that you cache (valid JSON scheme, IP/ASN limits).

TLS 1. 3, HSTS, OCSP stapling on CDN front domains.

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9) Versioning and disability

Content-hash in file names: 'app. .js' → cache for a year, no risk.

JSON/catalogs/banners: event disability (webhook from CMS/admin panel) + auto-warming top-keys.

Avoid global purge; do point purge by prefix/tags.

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10) Videos and streams: HLS/DASH on CDN

Short segments (2-4s) + '# EXT-X-PREFETCH '/Low-Latency HLS supported.

Tiered cache between PoPs for segments; 'Cache-Control: public, max-age = 3600'.

Per-region playlists (bitrate options) and local subtitles; Range-friendly.

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11) Specifics of game providers

Provider metadata (lists, limits, locales) - cached JSON with'SWR '.

Icons and promo media provider - re-host on their CDN domain (so as not to suffer from their slow origin).

CDN domain pool (but without domain-sharding - HTTP/2/3 it is not necessary) - separate large video/static/API to isolate the policy.

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12) Example of rules (pseudo, edge function)

js export default async (req) => {
//Normalizes the req key. url = normalizeQuery(req. url, ['lang', 'dpr', 'v']) ;//garbage dump
// Geofencing if (!isLicensed(req.geo. country)) return geoBlock();
//Signed URLs for private prefixes if (req. path. startsWith('/vip/')) verifySignatureOr403(req);
//Policy cache if (req. path. match(/\.(js    css    woff2)$/) && hasHash(req. path)) {
setHeader('Cache-Control','public, max-age=31536000, immutable');
} else if (req. path. endsWith('/games. json')) {
setHeader('Cache-Control','public, max-age=60, stale-while-revalidate=300');
setHeader('Surrogate-Control','max-age=300, stale-while-revalidate=600');
}
//Compression negotiateEncoding (['br', 'zstd', 'gzip']);
return fetchFromCacheThenOrigin(req);
}

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13) CDN and SLO observability

RUM: Collect 'TTFB', 'LCP', 'first paint' by region/network (mobile vs Wi-Fi).

Edge metrics: hit/miss, shield hit-ratio, prefix misses, outgoing traffic volume, '4xx/5xx' codes.

Alerts: hit-ratio drop, regional TTFB rise, "miss storm," '429' spike/ASN bot.

Traces: marks' edge → shield → origin'to see where' burns'.

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14) Cost: How not to overpay

Cache heavy and hot (icons/video/directories) - reduces egress from origin.

Reduce the cardinality of the keys (remove garbage queries/UA variations).

Tiered cache and regional shield nodes save backend requests.

Compression (Brotli/Zstd) reduces traffic; AVIF/WebP - mast-hive for pictures.

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15) Production readiness checklist

• Anycast CDN with coverage of target markets (EU, LatAm, MENA, APAC); included HTTP/3.
• Immutable assets with content hashes; 'Cache-Control: max-age = 1y, immutable'.
• Catalogs/JSON - SWR + Surrogate-Control, TTL 30-300 s, point disability from CMS.
• Tiered cache + Origin Shield, coalescing, TTL-jitter.
• Formats: AVIF/WebP, Brotli/Zstd, Range for video.
• Edge functions: query normalization, geo filters, URL signed, A/B.
• Geo-constraint and WAF on PoP; HTTPS only (HSTS), TLS 1. 3.
• Observability: RUM TTFB/LCP, hit-ratio, regional alerts.
• Warm-up procedures before promo/stream, canary calculations.
• Cache key documentation, disability policy, and "miss storm" runbook.

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Resume Summary

To really reduce TTFB around the world, use Anycast + tiered cache + origin shield, make immutable for all versioned, use SWR for dynamic lists, cut bytes (Brotli/Zstd, AVIF/WebP), and on edge - normalize keys, add geo filters and signatures. Warm up top games before promo, measure TTFB/LCP via RUM and keep the hit-ratio under control - this way the lobby opens instantly, games start without pauses, and origin remains cold and cheap.