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CDN:Usage

Last Updated:Sep 08, 2026

Query bandwidth, traffic, and request counts for your CDN-accelerated domain names. Filter by domain name, time range, and billable region to identify consumption patterns and reconcile billing data.

Data discrepancy: usage data vs. access logs

Traffic reported by the Alibaba Cloud CDN console (and the DCDN console) or API is approximately 1.1 times the traffic recorded in access logs. For details, see Why is the traffic amount found by using the Monitoring & Usage Analytics or Usage Statistics feature or the usage statistics feature different from the logged traffic amount?

Key concepts

Point of Presence (POP): A CDN edge node that serves content to end users. Resource usage data is collected at the POP level and grouped by the billable region the POP belongs to.

Billable region: A geographic billing zone that groups POPs. Alibaba Cloud CDN uses billable regions such as Chinese mainland, Asia Pacific 1, and North America. Because billing is calculated per region, the same domain name may show separate usage figures for each region it serves traffic through.

Resource usage vs. resource monitoring vs. real-time monitoring

Alibaba Cloud CDN provides three data views. Understanding which to use prevents mismatched numbers when reconciling billing reports.

Feature

Data collection method

Filter dimensions

Best for

Resource usage

Collected at the POP level

Billable region, domain name, time range

Billing reconciliation, cost analysis

Resource monitoring

Based on client IP addresses

Region, ISP

Performance analysis by end-user location

Real-time monitoring

Based on client IP addresses

Region, ISP

Live traffic observation

For more information, see Resource monitoring and Real-time monitoring.

Queryable metrics

Metric

Use when

Bandwidth

Analyzing peak capacity and planning capacity upgrades

Traffic

Estimating monthly billing and cost allocation

HTTPS requests

Auditing secure request volume

QUIC requests

Evaluating QUIC protocol adoption

Time granularity

The available time granularity, query range, and historical data depth differ between the console and the API.

CDN console

Time granularity

Maximum time range per query

Historical data available

Data delay

5 minutes

3 days

Last 6 months

15 minutes

1 hour

31 days

Last 6 months

4 hours

1 day

31 days

Last 6 months

04:00 on the next day

API operations

Time granularity

Maximum time range per query

Historical data available

Data delay

5 minutes

3 days

93 days

15 minutes

1 hour

31 days

186 days

4 hours

1 day

366 days

366 days

04:00 on the next day

The API supports longer query ranges and retains historical data for longer periods than the console. Historical data retention varies by granularity: 93 days for 5-minute data, 186 days for 1-hour data, and 366 days for 1-day data.

Query resource usage details

  1. Log on toCDN console。

  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Usage.

  3. On the Usage page, select the metric you want to query and set the filter conditions. The page displays the resource usage data for the last 30 days across all domain names, and lists the daily resource usage data below the chart.

API reference

Use DescribeDomainUsageData to query usage data for domain names in a specified billable region programmatically.

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