Cloud DNS & Global Accelerator linkage for intelligent DNS resolution - Alibaba Cloud DNS

The intelligent DNS resolution feature of Public Zone identifies the source of access requests and intelligently returns different accelerated IP addresses to end users in different regions. This enables nearest access for your application services, reduces resolution latency, and improves web service access speed.

Background information

Traditional domain name resolution does not identify the location of end users and randomly returns an IP address. This method is inefficient and results in slow web service access.

To address this, you can create a Global Accelerator (GA) instance, set China (Shanghai) and China (Beijing) as acceleration regions, and configure intelligent DNS resolution. After you complete the configuration, intelligent DNS resolution identifies the location of end users and returns the optimal accelerated IP address for each region. This reduces resolution latency and improves web service access speed.

Step 1: Configure GA

Log on to the Global Accelerator console.
On the Instances page, click Create Standard Pay-as-you-go Instance.
On the Basic Instance Configuration page, enter the following information:
- GA Instance Name: For example, ga-instance.
- Accelerated IP Address Type: Select Elastic IP Address.
Click Next to go to the Configure Acceleration Area page.
- Acceleration Area: Select China (Beijing) and China (Shanghai).
- Assign Bandwidth: Enter a value for Maximum Bandwidth and select an IP Protocol.
Click Next to go to the Configure listeners page.
- Listener Name: For example, ga-listener-usa.
- Protocol: This example uses TCP.
- Port: Enter 80.
Click Next to go to the Configure an endpoint group page.
Each listener is associated with an endpoint group. By specifying the region where traffic is distributed, you can associate the endpoint group with the listener. After the association is created, Global Accelerator routes traffic to the optimal endpoint in the group.
- Region: Select the region where the endpoint group is located. This is the region of the target server. This example uses US (Silicon Valley).
- Backend Service Type: Select Alibaba Cloud Public IP.
- Backend Service: Select the Elastic IP address of the backend service that you want to accelerate.
Click Next to go to the Configuration Review page.
After you confirm the configurations, click Submit.

Step 2: Add a domain name

Before you can use the domain name resolution service, you must add your domain name to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console. If your domain name is already registered with Alibaba Cloud, you can skip this step.

Log on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS-Authoritative DNS console, and click Add Zone.
In the Add Domain Name dialog box, enter the domain name that you want to add and click OK.

Step 3: Configure intelligent DNS resolution

Important

By default, Public Zone is available in the Free Edition. To use intelligent DNS resolution for end users in different provinces or cities, you must upgrade your DNS instance from the Free Edition to the Ultimate Edition. For more information, see Upgrade an instance.

Complete the following steps to configure intelligent DNS resolution.

Go to the Alibaba Cloud DNS-Authoritative DNS console, find the target domain name, and click Settings in the Actions column.
Click Add Record.
In the Add Record dialog box, configure the record with the following information.
- For Record Type, select A.
- Hostname: Enter the prefix of the subdomain. This example uses www.
- Query Source: Default.
- TTL: This parameter specifies the cache time. A smaller value ensures faster propagation of record changes. This example uses 10 minutes.
- Record Value: Enter the accelerated IP address for Beijing.

Repeat the preceding steps to add records for the Shanghai, Guangdong, and Outside the Chinese mainland lines.

Record Type	Record Type	Resolution Line	Record Value	TTL
A	www	Default	Beijing accelerated IP	10 minutes
		Outside Chinese mainland	US (Silicon Valley) origin IP
		South China_Guangdong	Shanghai accelerated IP
		East China_Shanghai	Shanghai accelerated IP

Step 4: Test the access

After you integrate Global Accelerator with Alibaba Cloud DNS, test the intelligent DNS resolution.

Use the network probe tool, enter your service domain name, and click Detect Now. Verify that the configuration is effective by checking that the resolved IP address corresponds to the access region.