ESA is a new-generation acceleration and security product separate from DCDN. If you use DCDN or CDN and want to upgrade to ESA, deploy your services on ESA and then switch your DNS records to activate them.
Differences in billable items between products
Billable item | ESA | CDN | DCDN |
Pay-by-data-transfer | Yes. If you have volumetric services or need abuse prevention, purchase the ESA Pro plan. | Yes | Yes |
HTTPS requests | Free of charge Enterprise. | Yes | Yes |
WAF requests | Free of charge Enterprise. | Not applicable | Yes |
Attack traffic | Set blocking rules. Blocked traffic is not billed. | Yes | Yes |
Feature comparison
The features of ESA have been upgraded and redesigned compared to the DCDN or CDN. See the table below to find the mapping of CDN or DCDN features in ESA to help you get started with ESA.
Basic configurations
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Modify an acceleration region | Change the acceleration service scope by switching the acceleration region. | |||
Origin server configuration | Configure origin servers, such as OSS domain names, IP addresses, origin domain names, and Function Compute domain names. | Add DNS records to configure different types of origin server information for your site. | ||
IPv6 | Enable the IPv6 feature to allow requests on different links to support the IPv6 protocol. | Configure IPv6 for client requests. | Configure IPv6 for client requests. | ESA supports end-to-end IPv6 access. |
Configure IPv6 for back-to-origin requests. | Configure IPv6 for back-to-origin requests. |
Domain name management
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Add, delete, and query domain names | Provides features for adding, deleting, and querying domain names. |
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Domain name migration | Migrate domain names across accounts. | You can add your domain name to ESA. | ||
Verify domain name ownership | Verify the ownership of a domain name when you add it. |
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Origin fetch configurations
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Origin HOST | Configure the origin HOST to customize the HOST request header for origin requests. |
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Origin protocol | Configure the origin protocol to customize the protocol that points of presence (POPs) use to request resources from the origin server. |
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Origin requests to a private Alibaba Cloud OSS bucket | Configure origin requests to a private Alibaba Cloud OSS bucket to access all resources in the bucket. | |||
Origin SNI | If your origin server IP address is bound to multiple domain names and the origin protocol is HTTPS, configure the origin SNI to specify the requested domain name. The origin server returns the SSL certificate of the corresponding domain name based on the configured SNI to ensure successful origin requests. | |||
Origin HTTP request timeout | Set an appropriate back-to-origin HTTP request timeout based on your network conditions and the data processing capabilities of your origin server. This ensures that requests can be successfully sent to the origin server. | |||
Origin HTTP request header | Configure back-to-origin HTTP request headers to modify the HTTP headers in user requests that are sent to the origin server. This meets various business requirements. | Modify request headers using a transform rule. | ||
Origin HTTP response header | Modify back-to-origin HTTP response headers and configure features such as cache policies and cross-origin resource sharing. This optimizes website loading speed, enhances content security, controls resource accessibility, and improves user experience. | Modify response headers using a transform rule. | ||
Common Name whitelist | Add the Common Name of a certificate to a whitelist. This allows successful back-to-origin requests even if the SNI and the Common Name do not match. | Not supported | ||
Advanced origin fetch | Advanced origin lets you route requests to different origin servers based on the request header, query string parameter, path, or request cookie in client requests. | Configure DNS records under different conditions in an origin rule to implement advanced origin. | ||
Follow 301/302 redirects for origin requests | Enable the feature that allows POPs to follow 301/302 redirects. POPs directly process the content of 301/302 responses from the origin server on behalf of users. This reduces data interactions and speeds up resource retrieval. | Configure the feature that allows POPs to follow 301/302 redirects | Configure the feature that allows POPs to follow 301/302 redirects | Configure the feature that allows POPs to follow 301/302 redirects |
Rewrite origin URL | Configure an origin URL to rewrite the URL that an POP uses to send a back-to-origin request to the origin server. | Rewrite a URL using a transform rule. | ||
Rewrite origin parameters | Rewrite origin parameters to modify the parameters in a back-to-origin request URL. You can ignore all parameters, add parameters, delete parameters, retain parameters, or modify parameters. | |||
Origin group | Define multiple origin groups. Each origin group can contain multiple primary and secondary origin server addresses. | |||
Conditional origin | Configure a conditional origin to specify rule conditions to filter user requests. Requests that meet the rule conditions are redirected to the specified origin server address. | None | Configure DNS records under different conditions in a back-to-origin rule to implement conditional origin. |
Cache configurations
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Cache TTL | Configure the duration for which origin resources are cached on POPs based on your requirements. This ensures that users can access the latest resources. |
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Status code TTL | Configure a TTL for response status codes. If a client requests the same resource again, the system directly returns the response. This reduces the load on the server. After the TTL expires, the client must access the server again. | |||
Set HTTP response headers | Configure HTTP response headers. The system can return specified responses when users request resources. This lets you control features such as caching behavior and cross-domain access. | Configure a transform rule to modify outbound response headers. | ||
Custom error page | After you configure a custom error page, POPs return the custom error page instead of the default one when the requested content does not exist or an error occurs. Custom error pages improve user experience by providing more user-friendly error messages. | Implement this feature by adding a custom edge function. | ||
Request URL rewrite | If the storage path of origin resources changes, the path where POPs store the resources also changes. If the path in the user request URL remains unchanged, you can rewrite the request URL to redirect it to the target path. This reduces back-to-origin requests and improves client access performance. | Configure a redirection rule. | ||
Custom CacheKey | Configure a custom CacheKey to map different but similar requests to the same CacheKey. This helps improve the cache hit ratio, reduce the back-to-origin ratio, and decrease response time and bandwidth consumption. | |||
Shared cache/Merged origin requests | Shared cache allows multiple domain names under the same account to share cached resources. This allows them to share the same public resources, reduce bandwidth usage, improve the hit ratio, and decrease server access traffic. | None | None |
HTTPS configurations
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
HTTPS certificate | Deploy a certificate on the platform and enable the service to encrypt requests between clients and POPs. | |||
HTTP/2 settings | HTTP/2 is the new version of the protocol after HTTP/1.1. It has features such as binary framing, multiplexing, and header compression, which can significantly improve web performance and reduce data interaction latency. | |||
Force redirect | Enable the force redirect to HTTPS feature to automatically redirect client requests to more secure HTTPS requests. | |||
TLS versioning | Configure TLS versioning to adjust different TLS versions to balance the compatibility of older browsers with the security of communication. Lower TLS versions increase compatibility but weaken security, while higher versions enhance security but may restrict access for older browsers. | |||
HSTS | Enable the HSTS feature to force clients to connect to product nodes using HTTPS, which improves security. | |||
OCSP Stapling | The OCSP Stapling feature pre-caches certificate verification results and sends them to the client. This eliminates the need for the client to directly query the certificate status, thereby reducing verification time and improving access speed. |
Access control
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Referer hotlink protection | Set access control rules based on the Referer field to identify and filter visitors, preventing unauthorized resource theft. After configuring a blacklist or whitelist, the system decides whether to allow requests based on the list, returning the resource or a 403 response code. | Implement Referer blacklists and whitelists using custom WAF rules. | ||
URL authentication | Verify requests by configuring an encrypted string and a timestamp in the URL to prevent malicious downloads and enhance the security of public resources. | Implement this feature by configuring an edge function based on authentication method A, B, or C templates. | ||
IP blacklist/whitelist | Configure an IP blacklist or whitelist to filter requests. You can block or allow access from specific IPs, restrict sources, and address issues such as malicious IP scraping and attacks. | Implement IP blacklists and whitelists using custom WAF rules. | ||
UA blacklist/whitelist | User-Agent is part of the HTTP request header and contains identifiers such as the operating system and browser. Configure a blacklist or whitelist for it to restrict access to product resources and enhance security. | Implement UA blacklists and whitelists using custom WAF rules. | ||
Remote authentication | Configure remote authentication to forward user requests to a specified authentication server for verification. | None | Implement this feature by adding a custom edge function. |
Performance optimization
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
HTML optimization | Enable the HTML optimization feature. The system automatically removes comments and extra whitespace from HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files, removes redundant information, reduces file size, improves distribution efficiency, and enhances page readability. | Implement this feature by adding a custom edge function. | ||
Gzip compression | Enable the Gzip compression feature to reduce file size, improve transmission efficiency, and decrease bandwidth consumption. |
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Brotli compression | Brotli is a new open source compression algorithm that performs better than Gzip. After enabling the compression feature, product nodes intelligently compress and return resources, which can reduce file size, improve transmission efficiency, and decrease bandwidth consumption. |
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Ignore parameters | Enable the ignore parameters feature. When product nodes process a request, they remove the parameters after the question mark ( |
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Image editing | Use image editing to perform operations such as scaling, cropping, rotating, and compressing images, and cache the processed results. This improves the return speed, reduces server pressure, and decreases back-to-origin traffic. |
Video-related features
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Range origin fetch | By carrying Range information in back-to-origin requests, the origin server returns data within a specified range. This improves file distribution efficiency, increases the cache hit ratio, reduces back-to-origin traffic and server pressure, and improves response speed. | |||
Video seeking | Enable the video seeking feature to allow users to drag the progress bar freely when playing audio or video without affecting the playback effect. | |||
Listen to video | Separate the audio from a video file and return it to the client to enable audio playback, while reducing bandwidth usage and saving traffic. | None | Not supported | |
Audio or video preview | The audio or video preview feature lets you return only a specified duration of an audio or video file, enabling a trial experience for non-members. | None | ||
Rewrite standard M3U8 encryption | Enable the rewrite standard M3U8 encryption feature to rewrite M3U8 files under the protocol. A successful rewrite adds encryption parameters after a specific tag. | None |
Resource monitoring
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Bandwidth | Displays bandwidth and traffic information for a specific domain of the corresponding product, and allows queries by region, carrier, and different protocols. |
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Number of visits/QPS | Displays the number of requests and queries per second (QPS) related to the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product, to understand the access frequency of the domain name in different dimensions. | |||
HTTPCode | Presents the HTTP status code details of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product to help analyze the request response situation of the domain name. | |||
Back-to-origin statistics | Displays the back-to-origin bandwidth and back-to-origin traffic of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. | Set the filter "Service Provider=Origin" in Cache Analysis to view back-to-origin statistics. | ||
HTTPCode (origin fetch) | Displays the back-to-origin HTTP status code information of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. | |||
Hit rate | Displays the byte hit ratio and request hit ratio of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. | Not applicable | ||
Basic data real-time monitoring | Displays the bandwidth, traffic, number of requests, and QPS of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. |
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Back-to-origin real-time monitoring | Displays the back-to-origin bandwidth and back-to-origin traffic status of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. | Set the filter "Service Provider=Origin" in Cache Analysis to view back-to-origin statistics. | ||
Quality real-time monitoring | Displays the request hit ratio, byte hit ratio, and various HTTP status codes of the accelerated domain name of the corresponding product. |
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Operations reports
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
PV/UV | Query the PV and UV of a domain name by time. |
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Top client IPs | Query the top client IPs for a specified domain name, region, and date, and support ranking by traffic or number of requests. | |||
Regions and carriers | View the user access region distribution and user carrier distribution in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), and regions outside China within a specified time range. | |||
Popular Referers | Query the traffic, traffic proportion, number of visits, and visit proportion of popular Referer hotlink protection. | |||
Popular URLs | Query popular URLs for a specified domain name, status code, and date, including traffic, traffic proportion, number of visits, and visit proportion. | |||
Popular URLs (back-to-origin) | Query popular back-to-origin URLs for a specified domain name, status code, and date, including their traffic, traffic proportion, number of visits, and visit proportion. | |||
Domain name ranking | Presents the access ranking of each accelerated domain name, including proportion, traffic or bandwidth peak, peak time, and number of visits. | |||
Subscribe to operations report tasks | Operations reports provide statistics on user-accessed content, support customization and subscription based on business needs. After subscribing, the system sends the reports to the specified mailbox for analyzing the running status of the accelerated domain name. |
Purge and prefetch
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
URL purge | Submit the URL of the corresponding resource for a purge operation, allowing users to directly connect to the latest resource and cache it. | purge and prefetch resources | purge and prefetch resources | |
Directory purge | Submit the corresponding resource directory for a purge, allowing users to directly connect to the latest resource and cache it. | |||
Regex purge | Configure a URL containing a regular expression to batch purge all URLs that match the expression, for more efficient URL updates. | The original regex purge can be achieved through optimized purge policies: | ||
URL prefetch | Prefetch popular resources to relevant product nodes to reduce the load on the origin server and improve user experience. |
Tools
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
IP address query | Use the IP detection feature to verify whether the IP address actually accessed by a client request is the IP of the corresponding acceleration node, thereby determining if acceleration has taken effect. | |||
URL diagnostic tool | If a webpage cannot be opened or an error occurs, use the self-service diagnostic tool for diagnosis. | None | Not supported |
Usage and billing query
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Usage query | Query usage data for accelerated domain names, and select different dimensions for the query, such as traffic bandwidth, number of HTTPS requests, and billing region. | |||
Usage summary | Summarize the total usage of all domain names for the related product. | None | ||
Export summary | Export the total usage of all domain names for the related product. | None | ||
Export details | Export the usage details of a specified billable item for all domain names of the related product based on conditions such as domain name, time, and account, and download them locally for viewing. | None | ||
Resource plan query | View detailed information such as the total amount, remaining amount, and expiration time on the resource plan management page. | The subscription billing method is used, and resource plans are no longer used. | ||
Billing method query | View the current billing method. | You can view the current plan level through Websites or Query usage. | ||
Change billing method | Change the billing method. |
Other features
Feature | Description | CDN | DCDN | ESA |
Traffic cap | Set a traffic cap to control the bandwidth limit when users access the domain, reducing losses caused by burst traffic. | None | ||
EdgeScript | EdgeScript is a practical toolbox that helps you quickly achieve custom product configurations. When the regular configurations on the product console do not meet your business needs, you can try using it to achieve the desired configuration through simple programming. | |||
QUIC protocol switch | The QUIC protocol provides the same level of security as common security protocols, with lower connection and transmission latency. | |||
EdgeScript running status | View the running status of EdgeScript. |
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EdgeScript exceptions | View exceptions that occurred during EdgeScript execution and the returned error codes. | |||
Rules | Rules allow for graphical configuration of conditional rules, identifying user request parameters to determine whether a configuration takes effect, and precisely and flexibly controlling the execution effect of product configuration policies. | None | Use the new, highly open Rules. | |
Offline log download | Record the full network access logs of a domain name at an hourly granularity. You can download the logs of a specified domain name for any day within 30 days to a local path for analysis as needed. | |||
Transfer offline logs using Function Compute | Configure the feature to transfer offline logs using Function Compute. Once a new offline log is generated, it triggers the preset Function Compute logic to automatically and serverlessly transfer these log files to Object Storage Service. | None | You can achieve this by creating a real-time log delivery task. | |
Real-time log delivery | The real-time log delivery feature can collect logs generated by a specified accelerated domain name in a specified region in real time and deliver them to Simple Log Service for analysis, allowing for quick monitoring and troubleshooting of business issues. | Deliver real-time CDN logs to SLS to analyze user access data | ||
Data statistics | With the real-time log feature, you can collect logs generated by nodes in real time and deliver them to Simple Log Service for storage and use, to quickly monitor and locate business problems. |
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