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Networking Advanced

What is Anycast?

A network routing technique where the same IP address is announced from multiple locations, directing users to the nearest server.

Anycast assigns a single IP address to multiple servers in different geographic locations. Network routing protocols (BGP) automatically direct each user's traffic to the nearest server instance. This provides automatic load distribution, DDoS mitigation (attack traffic is absorbed across all locations), and low latency (users connect to the closest node). CDN providers, DNS services (Cloudflare, Google Public DNS), and cloud providers use anycast extensively. If one anycast node fails, traffic automatically routes to the next nearest node, providing built-in fault tolerance without client-side changes.

Related Terms

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
A technology that creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a remote server, securing internet traffic.
VLAN (Virtual LAN)
A logical grouping of network devices that creates separate broadcast domains on the same physical network infrastructure.
DNS Record Types
Different types of DNS entries that map domain names to various information like IP addresses, mail servers, and verification strings.
Network Bridge
A device or software that connects two or more network segments at the data link layer, forwarding traffic based on MAC addresses.
TCP/IP
The fundamental communication protocol suite of the internet that defines how data is packaged, addressed, transmitted, and received.
NAT (Network Address Translation)
A method of mapping private IP addresses to public IP addresses, allowing multiple devices to share a single public IP.
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