An acceleration area is a region that requires accelerated access. You should select the region where your clients are located or a nearby region as the acceleration area.
An acceleration area is a collection of one or more Alibaba Cloud regions. When you create a Global Accelerator (GA) instance, you must first select an accelerated IP address type based on your required proximity-based access mode. These types include Elastic IP Address (EIP) and Anycast Elastic IP Address (Anycast EIP). The accelerated IP address type that you select determines whether you need to configure an acceleration area.
Accelerated IP addresses
Clients access an accelerated IP address to enter the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network from a nearby location.
Accelerated IP address types
Accelerated IP addresses are available in two types: Elastic IP Address and Anycast Elastic IP Address. The following table describes the main differences between the Elastic IP Address and Anycast Elastic IP Address types.
Item | EIP | Anycast EIP |
Access mode | The custom access mode is used. You must specify an acceleration area.  You can select acceleration areas and acceleration regions based on your business requirements. Global Accelerator allocates a separate EIP to each acceleration region. | The automatic access mode is used. You do not need to specify an acceleration area.  Global Accelerator allocates an Anycast EIP to multiple regions across the globe. Users can connect to the nearest access point of the Alibaba Cloud global transmission network by sending requests to the Anycast EIP. |
Supported access points | For more information about the acceleration areas and regions supported by Global Accelerator, see Acceleration areas and regions. | The acceleration service depends on the access points that are supported by Anycast EIP. You can use Anycast EIPs to accelerate content delivery for clients outside the Chinese mainland. To accelerate content delivery for clients in the Chinese mainland by using Anycast EIPs, you must specify China (Hong Kong) as the acceleration region. For more information, see the "Access point locations" section of the What is Anycast EIP? topic. |
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For pay-as-you-go standard Global Accelerator instances, two accelerated IP addresses of the EIP type are allocated to each acceleration region. Both accelerated IP addresses can receive client traffic at the same time to ensure high availability of the acceleration area.
By default, you cannot use Anycast EIPs as accelerated IP addresses. To use Anycast EIPs as accelerated IP addresses, go to the Quota Center console, find the quota named GA supports anycast, and then click Apply in the Actions column.
To use Anycast EIPs, the Global Accelerator instances and basic bandwidth plans must meet the following requirements:
Global Accelerator instances: Select subscription standard Global Accelerator instances whose specifications are Large Ⅰ or higher and whose bandwidth metering method is pay-by-bandwidth.
Basic bandwidth plans: You must select the premium bandwidth type and the pay-by-data-transfer metering method. By default, basic bandwidth plans that use the pay-by-data-transfer metering method are not available. To use these plans, contact your account manager.
IP protocol versions of accelerated IP addresses
If the accelerated IP address type is Elastic IP Address, you can add an acceleration area and select an IP protocol for the accelerated IP address. If the accelerated IP address type is Anycast Elastic IP Address, only the IPv4 protocol is supported.
After you add an acceleration area, Global Accelerator allocates an accelerated IP address that uses the selected protocol to each region in the acceleration area.
Protocol Version
IPv4: assigns IPv4 addresses. The IPv4 addresses are used to accelerate IPv4 services for IPv4 clients.
IPv6: assigns IPv6 addresses. The IPv6 addresses are used to accelerate IPv4 services for IPv6 clients.
Dual Stack: assigns IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. This allows IPv4 and IPv6 clients to connect to GA at the same time.
Limits on dual-stack accelerated IP addresses
The GA instance must be a pay-as-you-go standard GA instance.
The ISP line type must be BGP (Multi-ISP).
The listener must be an intelligent routing listener.
Regions that support IPv6 and dual-stack accelerated IP addresses
The regions in the following table are for reference only. You can view the actual regions that are supported by GA instances in the GA console.
For more information about how to use regions that do not support IPv6 or dual-stack networking, see Acceleration areas.
Acceleration area | Region |
North China | China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), and China (Ulanqab) |
South China | China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), and China (Guangzhou) |
East China | China (Hangzhou) and China (Shanghai) |
Southwest China | China (Chengdu) |
North America | US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), and Mexico |
Asia Pacific | China (Hong Kong), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Japan (Tokyo), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), and Thailand (Bangkok) |
Europe | Germany (Frankfurt) and UK (London) |
Bandwidth of acceleration regions
Each acceleration region is subject to bandwidth throttling based on the allocated bandwidth.
Bandwidth allocation limits
The bandwidth that can be allocated to each acceleration region depends on the billing method of the Global Accelerator instance.
Billing method | Bandwidth metering method | Bandwidth allocation limits |
Pay-as-you-go | Pay-by-data-transfer |
For pay-by-data-transfer, the peak bandwidth is used only for throttling. The data transfer fees are settled and billed by Cloud Data Transfer (CDT). Note The bandwidth of each accelerated IP address in an acceleration region is the same as the bandwidth configured for the acceleration region. |
Subscription | Pay-by-bandwidth |
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The bandwidth limits for endpoint group regions are as follows:
For subscription GA instances, each endpoint group region is throttled based on the maximum bandwidth of the instance type.
For pay-as-you-go GA instances, each endpoint group region is throttled based on the total bandwidth of all acceleration regions.
Internet quality types for acceleration regions
You can select an ISP line type for Global Accelerator instances whose bandwidth metering method is pay-by-data-transfer.
BGP (Multi-ISP): provides premium BGP lines across the globe. This is the default line type. BGP lines from different ISPs can be used. The optimal BGP line is automatically selected to ensure network stability.
All acceleration regions support BGP (Multi-ISP).
BGP Pro: BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro lines optimize data transmission to the Chinese mainland and improve connection quality for international services. Cross-border connections are established by using Chinese mainland ISP services when BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro lines provide services to users in the Chinese mainland (except data centers). This reduces network latency.
BGP (Multi-ISP) Pro is available only in the China (Hong Kong) and Japan (Tokyo) regions.
Acceleration areas and regions
Acceleration areas and regions supported by pay-as-you-go GA instances
The regions in the following table are for reference only. You can view the actual regions that are supported by GA instances in the GA console.
If the region where the client resides is not supported by GA, you can select the acceleration region that is closest to the client. The client can use the accelerated IP address or CNAME to access the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network from the acceleration region.
The following acceleration regions are unavailable by default. If you want to specify these acceleration regions, use the following methods:
If you want to specify China (Heyuan), Philippines (Manila), or Mexico as an acceleration region, contact your account manager.
If you want to specify Brazil (Sao Paulo), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh), or UAE (Dubai) as an acceleration region, apply for the required privilege.
Log on to the Privileges page of the Quota Center console and apply for the privilege named Accelerated regional whitelist. The ID of the privilege is ga_whitelist/region_whitelist. For more information, see the Adjust quotas section of the Manage GA quotas topic.
Acceleration area | Region |
North China | China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), and China (Ulanqab) |
South China | China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), and China (Guangzhou) |
East China | China (Hangzhou) and China (Shanghai) |
Southwest China | China (Chengdu) |
North America | US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), Canada (Toronto), Canada (Vancouver), and Mexico |
South America | Brazil (Sao Paulo) |
Asia Pacific | China (Hong Kong), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Japan (Tokyo), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) |
Europe | Germany (Frankfurt) and UK (London) |
Middle East | UAE (Dubai) |
Acceleration areas and regions supported by a subscription GA instance
The regions in the following table are for reference only. You can view the actual regions that are supported by GA instances in the GA console.
If the region where the client resides is not supported by GA, you can select the acceleration region that is closest to the client. The client can use the accelerated IP address or CNAME to access the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network from the acceleration region.
The following acceleration regions are unavailable by default. If you want to specify these acceleration regions, use the following methods:
If you want to specify Philippines (Manila) as an acceleration region, contact your account manager.
If you want to specify the following regions as acceleration regions, apply for the required privilege: China (Heyuan), China (Nanjing), Brazil (Sao Paulo), Thailand (Bangkok), and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh).
Log on to the Privileges page of the Quota Center console and apply for the privilege named Accelerated regional whitelist. The ID of the privilege is ga_whitelist/region_whitelist. For more information, see the Adjust quotas section of the Manage GA quotas topic.
Acceleration area | Region |
North China | China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), and China (Ulanqab) |
South China | China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), and China (Guangzhou) |
East China | China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), and China (Nanjing) |
Southwest China | China (Chengdu) |
North America | US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), Canada (Toronto), and Canada (Vancouver) |
South America | Brazil (Sao Paulo) |
Asia Pacific | China (Hong Kong), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Japan (Tokyo), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok), and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) |
Europe | Germany (Frankfurt) and UK (London) |