GA acceleration areas, regions, and bandwidth allocation - Global Accelerator

An acceleration area groups one or more Alibaba Cloud regions for proximity-based access to the GA network. Select regions closest to your clients.

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 proximity-based access needs. Types include Elastic IP Address (EIP) and Anycast Elastic IP Address (Anycast EIP). The type 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 compares Elastic IP Address and Anycast Elastic IP Address.

Item	Elastic IP Address	Anycast EIP
Access mode	Uses the custom nearby access mode. You must configure an acceleration area. You can select acceleration areas and regions as needed. GA provides an EIP for each acceleration region.	Uses the automatic nearby access mode. You do not need to configure an acceleration area. GA provides two Anycast EIPs in multiple regions across the globe. Clients can connect to the nearest access point of the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network through the Anycast EIPs.
Supported access points	GA supports Acceleration areas and regions.	Relies on access points covered by Anycast EIP to provide network acceleration, mainly for regions outside the Chinese mainland. Clients in the Chinese mainland connect through China (Hong Kong).
Features	Pros: DNS is used for latency-based scheduling. You have full control over path optimization. Cons: The configuration and O&M are complex. You must configure acceleration areas and bandwidth as needed. This mode cannot be used to provide services using a static IP address.	Pros: You do not need to select an acceleration area or region. Client traffic is automatically connected to the nearest access point. This greatly reduces O&M complexity. Cons: The nearby access feature depends on the cooperation of carriers and the coverage of Alibaba Cloud.

Note

The Anycast EIP accelerated IP address type is available only to beta users. To use this feature, contact your account manager.
The number of accelerated IP addresses for each acceleration region of a medium GA instance varies based on the billing method of the instance and the accelerated IP address type:
- Pay-as-you-go GA instances
  - If the accelerated IP address type is Elastic IP Address, two EIPs are allocated to each acceleration region. The two EIPs can be used to simultaneously accelerate client traffic and ensure high availability for the acceleration region.
  - If the accelerated IP address type is Anycast EIP, GA provides two Anycast EIPs in multiple regions across the globe.
- Subscription GA instances
  Only the Elastic IP Address type is supported. One EIP is allocated to each acceleration region.

IP protocol versions

For the Elastic IP Address type, you can add an acceleration area and select an IP protocol. The Anycast Elastic IP Address type supports only IPv4.

After you add an acceleration area, GA assigns an accelerated IP address with the selected protocol to each region in the area.

Protocol version

IPv4: Allocates an IPv4 accelerated IP address. This allows IPv4 clients to connect to the GA network.
IPv6: Allocates an IPv6 accelerated IP address. This allows IPv6 clients to connect to the GA network and enables the IPv6 Translation Service.
Dual-stack: Allocates both an IPv4 and an IPv6 accelerated IP address. This allows both IPv4 and IPv6 clients to connect to the GA network.

Limits on dual-stack

GA instance type: medium pay-as-you-go GA instance.
Network type: Only BGP (Multi-ISP) is supported.
Listener routing type: Only smart routing is supported.

Regions that support IPv6 and dual-stack

Note

The regions in the following table are for reference only. For a list of supported regions, refer to the console.
For information about regions that are not enabled by default and how to request access, see Acceleration areas and regions.

Acceleration area	Regions
North China	China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Ulanqab)
South China	China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou)
East China	China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai)
Southwest China	China (Chengdu)
North America	US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), Mexico
Asia Pacific	China (Hong Kong), South Korea (Seoul), Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Japan (Tokyo), Indonesia (Jakarta), Philippines (Manila), Thailand (Bangkok)
Europe	Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London)

Bandwidth of acceleration regions

Each acceleration region is throttled based on its allocated bandwidth.

Bandwidth allocation limits

Bandwidth allocation limits depend on the billing method of the GA instance.

Billing method

Bandwidth metering method

Bandwidth allocation limits

Pay-as-you-go

Pay-by-data-transfer

For the Elastic IP Address type, the throttling range per acceleration region is 2 to 10,000 Mbps.
For the Anycast Elastic IP Address type, you allocate unified bandwidth across all acceleration regions, ranging from 200 to 5,000 Mbps.

For pay-by-data-transfer, peak bandwidth is used only for throttling. Data transfer fees are settled and billed through Cloud Data Transfer (CDT).

The bandwidth of each accelerated IP address in an acceleration region is the same as the bandwidth configured for that region.

GA uses a distributed high-availability cluster architecture. The forwarding capacity of a single connection is limited by the single-core performance of an individual data plane node, and your configured peak bandwidth is distributed across multiple servers in the HA cluster. If your workload is dominated by high-throughput, long-lived connections, a single connection may not reach the instance's peak bandwidth. We recommend splitting your traffic into multiple concurrent connections to fully utilize the total bandwidth capacity of your GA instance.

Subscription

Pay-by-bandwidth

The total bandwidth of all acceleration regions must not exceed the bandwidth of the associated basic bandwidth plan.
The minimum bandwidth per acceleration region is 2 Mbps.
The bandwidth of an acceleration region is capped by the GA instance type maximum bandwidth. If the total bandwidth of all acceleration regions exceeds this cap, packet loss may occur.

Bandwidth limits for endpoint group regions:

Subscription: each endpoint group region is throttled at the instance type maximum bandwidth.

Pay-as-you-go: each endpoint group region is throttled at the total bandwidth of all acceleration regions.

Internet quality types for acceleration regions

For pay-as-you-go GA instances that use Elastic IP Address as the accelerated IP address type, you can select a network type for the acceleration region.

BGP (Multi-ISP): BGP (Multi-ISP) provides high-quality BGP lines that cover multiple regions across the globe. It connects to the networks of multiple carriers and automatically selects the optimal route to ensure fast and stable access.
All acceleration regions support and use the BGP (Multi-ISP) type by default.
BGP Pro: BGP Pro is a premium network line that optimizes traffic from regions outside the Chinese mainland to the Chinese mainland. It improves the quality of international connections. Compared with standard BGP (Multi-ISP) lines, BGP Pro lines provide lower latency when they serve clients in the Chinese mainland (excluding data centers in the Chinese mainland) because they are directly connected to the Chinese mainland through premium carrier networks.
Currently, GA supports the BGP Pro type only in the China (Hong Kong) and Japan (Tokyo) regions.

Acceleration areas and regions

Pay-as-you-go

Note

When the accelerated IP type is Elastic IP Address, you can select acceleration areas and regions. When the accelerated IP type is Anycast Elastic IP Address, the supported acceleration regions depend on the access points covered by Anycast EIP, and you do not need to select acceleration areas and regions.
The regions in the following table are for reference only. For a list of supported regions, refer to the console.
If the client is in a region that is not supported by GA, you can select the nearest acceleration region. Client traffic can enter the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network from the selected acceleration region through the accelerated IP address or CNAME.
The following acceleration regions are not available by default. To use these regions, submit a request:
- Contact your account manager: China (Heyuan) and Philippines (Manila).
- Request a privilege quota: Brazil (Sao Paulo), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh), and UAE (Dubai).
  Log on to the Quota Center Privilege Quota List page and request the Acceleration Region Whitelist privilege quota (Quota ID: ga_whitelist/region_whitelist). For more information, see Increase Quotas.

Acceleration area	Regions
North China	China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Ulanqab)
South China	China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou)
East China	China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai)
Southwest China	China (Chengdu)
North America	US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), Canada (Toronto), Canada (Vancouver), 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), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh)
Europe	Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London)
Middle East	UAE (Dubai)

Subscription

Note

The regions in the following table are for reference only. For a list of supported regions, refer to the console.
If the client is in a region that is not supported by GA, you can select the nearest acceleration region. Client traffic can enter the Alibaba Cloud acceleration network from the selected acceleration region through the accelerated IP address or CNAME.
The following acceleration regions are not available by default. To use these regions, submit a request:
- Contact your account manager: Philippines (Manila).
- Request a privilege quota: China (Heyuan), China (Nanjing), Brazil (Sao Paulo), Thailand (Bangkok), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh).
  Log on to the Privilege Quota List of Quota Center page and request the Acceleration Region Whitelist privilege quota (Quota ID: ga_whitelist/region_whitelist). For more information, see Increase Quotas.

Acceleration area	Regions
North China	China (Qingdao), China (Beijing), China (Ulanqab)
South China	China (Shenzhen), China (Heyuan), China (Guangzhou)
East China	China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Nanjing)
Southwest China	China (Chengdu)
North America	US (Silicon Valley), US (Virginia), Canada (Toronto), 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), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh)
Europe	Germany (Frankfurt), UK (London)