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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.
Multicast
A network communication method that sends data to multiple recipients simultaneously without duplicating packets for each recipient.
DNS (Domain Name System)
A hierarchical naming system that translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses.
SSL/TLS Certificate
A digital certificate that authenticates a website identity and enables encrypted HTTPS connections.
CIDR Notation
A compact method for specifying IP addresses and their associated routing prefix using a slash followed by the prefix length.
Reverse Proxy
A server that sits between clients and backend servers, forwarding client requests and returning server responses on their behalf.
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