Back in September I blogged about the new Microsoft AJAX CDN (Content Delivery Network) service that the ASP.NET team is now providing. The CDN provides edge caching support for AJAX libraries (including jQuery and ASP.NET AJAX). The service is available for free, does not require any registration, and can be used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. It offers a great way to speed up your external facing web-sites.
SSL Support Now Provided
One of the features in September that we said was coming (but which was not available at the initial launch) was SSL support for scripts served off of the CDN. This is necessary for scenarios where you have SSL enabled pages on your site, and you want to reference a script library from the Microsoft CDN and avoid a “This page contains both secure and non-secure items” warning message being displayed to end-users visiting your site.
SSL support is now enabled with the scripts hosted on the Microsoft AJAX CDN. Simply use an “https” moniker with any script references on your site that point to the CDN, and they will now be served over SSL. For example, below is how you can reference jQuery over SSL:
<script src="https://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
The Microsoft AJAX CDN documentation has recently been updated with more details about it. You can visit it here to learn more. It lists all of the libraries currently offered via the CDN. We are steadily adding more libraries to it and will update the page as new ones become available.
Hope this helps,
Scott
P.S. In addition to blogging, I’m also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu