Dynamic Route for CDN (DCDN) is a service developed by Alibaba Cloud based on Alibaba Cloud CDN (CDN). CDN accelerates the delivery of static content. DCDN accelerates the delivery of both static and dynamic content over TCP, UDP, and WebSocket. DCDN allows you to integrate service security and edge computing with more than 2,800 edge nodes that are distributed around the world. This can help improve the performance of your websites and your business efficiency, and provide a better experience for your users.

DCDN is simple and easy to use. You do not need to adjust your business structure or perform complex configurations. To use DCDN, you only need to log on to the DCDN console and add the domain names that you want to accelerate to DCDN. For more information, see Quick Start.

Features

DCDN can help improve your business efficiency:
  • DCDN can accelerate content delivery over HTTP, HTTPS, and WebSocket. This way, DCDN can identify static and dynamic content and use optimal acceleration policies to accelerate the delivery of your website content.
  • DCDN supports IP Application Accelerator (IPA) based on TCP and UDP. This way, you do not need to focus on specific protocols when you want to accelerate the delivery of your website content.
  • DCDN has more than 2,800 globally distributed edge nodes that provide scalable resources. This ensures high availability of your services.
  • You can offload compute and bandwidth workloads, and connections from origin servers to edge nodes to reduce costs.
  • DCDN allows you to customize features such as A/B testing, URI rewrite, and blacklists on edge nodes.
  • DCDN provides a standardized API that is easy to use.

For more information, see Benefits.

How to work with DCDN

The following figure shows how DCDN works. How DCDN works
  • DCDN identifies static and dynamic content to accelerate your entire website.

    DCDN supports HTTP and HTTPS. After you add your domain name to DCDN, DCDN can identify static and dynamic content on your websites. Then, optimal acceleration policies are used to accelerate the delivery of your website content. Static content is cached on DCDN nodes. Users can retrieve the cached static content from the nearest DCDN nodes. Requests for dynamic content are redirected to the origin server by using an optimal route that is selected by an intelligent routing system.

  • DCDN supports multiple acceleration protocols to meet requirements of different business scenarios.

    DCDN supports Layer 7 acceleration based on WebSocket and Layer 4 acceleration based on TCP and UDP.

  • High availability

    DCDN has more than 2,800 globally distributed edge nodes that provide scalable resources. This ensures high availability of your services.

  • Edge security

    DCDN supports security features, such as rate limiting and DDoS mitigation, to ensure the security of edge nodes.

  • Edge computing

    DCDN allows you to customize features such as A/B testing, URI rewrite, and blacklists on edge nodes.

Differences between DCDN and CDN

Item CDN DCDN
Accelerated content Static content. Both static and dynamic content.
Acceleration method Accelerates the delivery of static content.

Static content, such as images and videos, is cached on edge nodes of CDN. Users can retrieve static content from the nearest nodes.

Accelerates the delivery of dynamic content, or both dynamic and static content.
  • Accelerates the delivery of dynamic content

    If content is requested by specific requests, such as POST requests, the content is not cached on edge nodes. In this case, the edge nodes redirect the requests to the origin server by using the optimal route to retrieve content based on an intelligent routing system.

  • Accelerate the delivery of both dynamic and static content

    Intelligently identifies static and dynamic content. Static content is cached on edge nodes. Users can retrieve the cached static content from the nearest edge nodes. Requests for dynamic content are redirected to the origin server by using an optimal route that is selected by the intelligent routing system.

Supported protocols HTTP and HTTPS. HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, UDP, and WebSocket.
Content identification Cannot separate dynamic content from static content.

You need to separate dynamic content from static content. CDN can accelerate the delivery of only static content. CDN cannot accelerate the delivery of dynamic content.

Intelligently identifies static and dynamic content.

You do not need to separate dynamic content from static content. DCDN can identify static and dynamic content and separately accelerate the delivery of static and dynamic content.

Edge computing You can use JavaScript to customize features such as A/B testing and prefetch on edge nodes. You can configure edge computing on the edge nodes and customize features such as A/B testing, URI rewrite, and blacklists on edge nodes.

For more information about dynamic and static content, see What are static content and dynamic content?.

Scenarios

DCDN is suitable for various industries, including online education, gaming, retail, finance, media, and social media.
Online education Gaming Retail Finance Media Social media
  • APIs
  • Online examination
  • Online programming
  • Interactive whiteboards
  • Learning and examination reports
  • Uploads of images and audio content
  • Curriculum
  • Knowledge communities
  • Online chat
  • Online shops
  • APIs
  • Browser games
  • Turn-based games
  • Real-time interaction
  • Online multiplayer games
  • Deployment of game servers
  • In-game purchases
  • Online chat
  • Player rankings
  • Installation packages and resource plans
  • Online shops
  • APIs
  • Commodity search
  • Orders and transactions
  • Shipping updates
  • Online customer service
  • Promotional HTML5 pages
  • Sales promotions
  • Flash sales
  • Cross-border e-commerce
  • apps and websites
  • Financial transactions
  • Financial investments
  • Cross-border financial services
  • Financial markets
  • Financial news and information
  • Real-time quotation
  • SSL and VPN services for enterprises
  • Virtual desktops
  • IPv6 services
  • Websites and apps
  • News and information
  • Breaking news
  • Logon, registration, and query services
  • Personalized recommendations
  • Comments, replies, and likes
  • APIs
  • Online chat
  • File synchronization
  • Breaking news
  • Information graphics
  • Uploads of images and text
  • Comments and replies
  • Online shops
  • Likes and gifts
  • Personal information display

Pricing

You are charged for basic services, requests, data transferred over WebSocket or bandwidth of WebSocket connections, and value-added services of DCDN. You can use resource packages to offset resource fees. For more information, see Overview and DCDN Pricing.

We recommend that you understand the billing rules of DCDN before you activate the service. For more information, see Activate DCDN.

Manage DCDN

After you create an Alibaba Cloud account, you can manage DCDN as shown in the following examples:
  • Use the DCDN console

    The DCDN console is an easy-to-use web console that supports interactive operations. For more information, see Feature .

  • Call DCDN API operations

    The DCDN API is a remote procedure call (RPC) API that supports GET and POST requests. For more information, see API Reference.

References

Use DCDN to accelerate content delivery for ECS instances