When using Alibaba Cloud CDN to retrieve resources, CDN generates a large amount of log data. CDN is integrated with Simple Log Service (SLS) to deliver log data to SLS in real time for further analysis. Then, you can use the results to troubleshoot issues and make business decisions at the earliest opportunity.
Feature overview
When you use CDN, a large amount of network log data is generated. The real-time log delivery feature allows you to collect and deliver the logs to SLS. Then, you can consume the logs in SLS to monitor your business and identify issues. After you enable the real-time log delivery feature, you are charged for log entries delivered to SLS.
For more information, see What is Simple Log Service?
Usage notes
The traffic usage of accelerated domain names queried using the monitoring or resource usage feature available in the CDN or DCDN console or by calling API operations differs from that collected in logs. In most cases, the former is about 1.1 times that of the latter. For more information, see Why is the traffic amount found by using the monitoring and usage analytics feature or the usage statistics feature different from the traffic amount that is logged?
Differences between real-time log shipping and the offline log feature
Log latency
The real-time log delivery feature collects log data in real time, and logs are generated within 3 minutes after an event occurs. Offline log data is generated within 24 hours.
Log analysis
The real-time log delivery feature integrates the log storage and log analysis capabilities of SLS. The feature provides four preset analysis report templates: basic data, error analysis, frequently requested resources, and user analysis. The feature also supports custom log analysis policies. In comparison, the offline log feature only lets you ship logs to Object Storage Service (OSS), and does not integrate log analysis capabilities.
Benefits
Low latency
Log data is generated within 3 minutes after an event occurs. This lets you analyze access logs, identify issues, and resolve them right away.
End-to-end
With most traditional offline log analysis solutions, before analyzing data, you first need to download logs, upload them to a data warehouse, then clean the data, and define the data model. This increases labor costs and the time needed for analysis. The real-time log delivery feature integrates log storage and log analysis capabilities of SLS to streamline offline log analysis.
Billing rules
You are charged for real-time log delivery based on the number of log entries delivered to a specific service. Log delivery fees do not include storage or data analysis fees.
Billable item | Billing rule | Billing method | Billing cycle |
Log entries | After you enable real-time log delivery, you are charged for log entries delivered to a specific service. | Pay-as-you-go | You are charged on a daily basis. Bills are issued 3 to 4 hours after the end of each billing cycle. |
Scenarios
You can use real-time log delivery to troubleshoot issues that may occur when the delivery of your content is accelerated. You can also use the collected log data to analyze user access statistics. CDN provides the following types of reports:
Log analysis report | Description |
Basic data | This report provides information about the overall performance of Alibaba Cloud CDN and the user access efficiency, such as hit ratio, access latency, and download speed. It also lets you quickly identify and handle service quality issues. |
Access errors | This report helps you quickly locate issues when application access exceptions occur, such as URI issues, origin server failures, unavailable POPs, regional network issues, and Internet service provider (ISP) network issues. |
Frequently requested resources | This report provides information about frequently requested resources and helps you gain insight into popular domain names and URIs, tells you where your customers are concentrated, along with their ISPs. The data is also useful in helping you better understand your business, such as whether operational activities attract the expected traffic volume, and whether the traffic during peak hours is higher or lower than expected. This helps you make adjustments to the overall operations of your business. |
User composition | This report provides information about the user composition of your website, including the client or device, general location, and ISPs of your users. You can see which users made the most visits or downloads. |
For information about real-time log delivery, see Configure real-time log delivery.
For information about the log analysis module and typical scenarios of access data analysis, see Best practices for shipping and analyzing Alibaba Cloud CDN real-time logs in Simple Log Service.