What are the benefits of a reverse proxy server?

1. Provide caching service, which is almost invisible on the client proxy.

This means that the actual server has less to do and does not need to resend the same content every time the client connects.

2. Allow clients close to the proxy to feel at least faster response to cached content.

Having multiple such proxies in different geographical locations is actually the role of CDN (content delivery network), or its main part.

3. Use instead of turning off the entire site for maintenance.

Before shutting down the primary server for maintenance, simply point the proxy to the mirror server. This is not the only way to solve this problem, but it may help if you cannot easily swap IP addresses to the mirror.

4. Redirect different types of content to different servers.

For example, all videos come from one, all forms are entered into another, and so on. In this way, you can combine multiple servers to generate a site instead of stacking them together in layers - proxies effectively become the "glue" of binding, and they are together to form the top layer.

Of course, all these benefits are due to the other functions allowed by the proxy. It's not just the fact that it "emulates" the IP address and connects through. For server-side connections, this section is actually much more useful than from the client.