What is Anycast?
Turkish: Anycast
Anycast advertises the same IP address from multiple locations and uses BGP routing to send traffic to the nearest or best network point.
What is Anycast?
Anycast is a routing model where the same IP address is announced from multiple servers or network locations around the world. Internet routing then sends a user’s packets to the nearest or most preferred location from a BGP perspective.
A user in Istanbul connecting to 203.0.113.10 may reach an edge server in Europe, while a user in Singapore connecting to the same IP may reach an Asian location. The destination IP is identical from the application’s point of view, but the physical serving location changes.
How It Works
Anycast is usually implemented through BGP announcements. Multiple data centers advertise the same IP prefix. Networks select a path based on their routing tables and policies. If one location goes offline, its route can be withdrawn and traffic shifts to another location.
Common Uses
DNS resolvers and CDN networks are the most common Anycast examples. The goal is not only speed; Anycast can also spread large traffic spikes, absorb parts of a DDoS attack, and route around regional outages.
Anycast does not guarantee exact geographic placement. Route selection depends on ISP and transit policies. For critical services, health checks, route control, and monitoring are still required.
Related Terms
A CDN caches static content on edge servers near users, reducing latency, bandwidth pressure, and load on the origin server.
DNS (Domain Name System)DNS maps readable domain names to IP addresses so browsers, email servers, and APIs can reach the right destination without hard-coded numbers.