Global Accelerator interacts with Alibaba Cloud DNS

Procedure

Step 1: Enter the required information

You can enter the required information in the Global Accelerator console. The system then generates a list of recommended services, including a GA instance, a basic bandwidth plan, and a cross-region acceleration bandwidth plan.

To enter the required information, perform the following steps:

1. Log on to the Global Accelerator console.
2. On the Instances page, click Purchase Guide in the upper-right corner.
   Note Skip the preceding step if you are a first-time user.

   
3. In the Enter the required information to generate a list of recommended services section, enter the required information.
   • Acceleration Area: Select the area that requires acceleration. China (Shanghai) and China (Beijing) are selected in this example.
   • Service Region: Select the region where the origin servers are deployed. US (Silicon Valley) is selected in this example.
   • ICP Filing: If you want to accelerate a web service, specify whether the domain name of the web service has applied for an ICP number. If the service to be accelerated is not a web service, select No. Yes is selected in this example.
     Note All websites must obtain an ICP number before they are permitted to provide services to users in mainland China. For more information, see What is an ICP filing?.
   • Server Area: Specify whether the origin servers are deployed on Alibaba Cloud. Select On Alibaba Cloud in this example.
   • Peak Bandwidth Range: Peak bandwidth refers to the maximum amount of bandwidth required during peak hours. Unit: Mbit/s. 10 is entered in this example.
   • Maximum Concurrent Connections: The maximum number of concurrent connections that can be established to a GA instance. If the number of connections exceeds the upper limit, new connection requests are discarded. 5 thousand is selected in this example.
4. Click Generate Service List.
   After a list is generated, you can check the recommended services in the list.

Step 2: Purchase a service bundle

You can purchase a service bundle based on the recommended service list. The list includes a GA instance, a basic bandwidth plan, and a cross-region acceleration bandwidth plan.

To purchase a service bundle, perform the following steps:

1. Click Generate Service List.
   
2. On the buy page, set the following parameters for the GA instance.
   • Term: Select a subscription duration.
     Note The subscription duration is applied to all services in the recommended service bundle. For example, if you set Term to one year, you subscribe to the GA instance, basic bandwidth plan, and cross-region acceleration bandwidth plan for one year.
   • Specification: Select a GA instance specification. Small II is selected in this example.
     GA supports the following types of instance specifications: Small I, Small II, Small III, Medium I, Medium II, and Medium III. The acceleration performance varies, depending on the instance specification.

     Instance specification	Number of acceleration regions	Peak bandwidth	Maximum number of concurrent connections
     Small I	1	20 Mbit/s	5,000
     Small II	2	40 Mbit/s	10,000
     Small III	3	60 Mbit/s	15,000
     Medium I	5	100 Mbit/s	25,000
     Medium II	8	160 Mbit/s	40,000
     Medium III	10	200 Mbit/s	50,000

   • Quantity: Enter the number of GA instances that you want to purchase. 1 is entered in this example.
   • Bandwidth Type: Select the type of the basic bandwidth plan. Basic is selected in this example.
     Basic bandwidth plans support three types of bandwidth: basic acceleration bandwidth, enhanced acceleration bandwidth, and premium acceleration bandwidth. The acceleration type, acceleration backend service, and acceleration scope of a basic bandwidth plan vary based on the bandwidth type, as shown in the following table.

     Bandwidth type	Acceleration type	Acceleration backend service	Acceleration scope
     Basic acceleration bandwidth	Applications that are deployed on Alibaba Cloud	Alibaba Cloud Elastic IP address	By default, network connections within mainland China are accelerated. If you also purchase a cross-border bandwidth plan, network connections between mainland China and areas outside mainland China are also accelerated.
     Enhanced acceleration bandwidth	Applications that are deployed on Alibaba Cloud Applications that are not deployed on Alibaba Cloud	Alibaba Cloud Elastic IP address Custom IP address Custom domain name	By default, network connections within mainland China are accelerated. If you also purchase a cross-border bandwidth plan, network connections between mainland China and areas outside mainland China are also accelerated.
     Premium acceleration bandwidth	Applications that are deployed on Alibaba Cloud Applications that are not deployed on Alibaba Cloud	Alibaba Cloud Elastic IP address Custom IP address Custom domain name	By default, network connections are accelerated on a global scale. Network traffic transmitted from mainland China to areas outside mainland China is directed to the Hong Kong (China) region and then forwarded to the global network. If you also purchase a cross-border bandwidth plan, the acceleration of network connections between mainland China and areas outside mainland China is reinforced.

   • Peak Bandwidth: Specify the peak bandwidth of the basic bandwidth plan. 10 Mb is specified in this example.
   • Bandwidth: Specify the peak bandwidth of the cross-region acceleration bandwidth plan. 10 Mb is specified in this example.
3. Click Buy Now and complete the payment.

After you complete the payment, the basic bandwidth plan and cross-region acceleration bandwidth plan are automatically bound to the GA instance.

Step 3: Add an acceleration area

After you purchase a GA instance, you can add one or more acceleration areas where users are located, and allocate bandwidth to these areas.

To add an acceleration area, perform the following steps:

1. On the Instances page, find the GA instance that you have created and click the instance ID.
2. On the instance details page, click the Acceleration Areas tab. Then, click Add Acceleration Area.
3. In the Add Acceleration Area dialog box, set the following parameters, and click OK.
   • Acceleration Area: Select the area that requires acceleration. China North is selected in this example.
   • Regions: Select the regions where users are located. China (Beijing) is selected in this example.
   • Bandwidth: Specify the amount of bandwidth to be allocated to the region. 5 Mbit/s is specified in this example.
4. Repeat the preceding steps to add China (Shanghai) of China East as an acceleration region, and allocate 5 Mbit/s bandwidth to this region.

After the acceleration areas are added, GA assigns an accelerated IP address to each acceleration area to accelerate connections.

Step 4: Add a listener

Listeners are used to monitor connection requests from clients. GA monitors connection requests received on the specified listener ports and forwards the requests to endpoints through the specified protocol.

To add a listener to the GA instance, perform the following steps:

1. On the instance details page, click the Listeners tab. Then, click Add Listener.
2. In the Configure Listener & Protocol wizard, set the following listener parameters:
   • Listener Name: Enter a name for the listener to be created. The name must be 2 to 128 characters in length, and can contain letters, digits, underscores (_), and hyphens (-). It must start with a letter or Chinese character.
   • Protocol: Select a protocol for the listener. TCP is selected in this example.
   • Port Number: Enter a port number or port range. Requests are received and then forwarded from the specified ports to the endpoints. Valid values: 1 to 65499. 80 is entered in this example.
   • Client Affinity: Select whether to enable client affinity. When client affinity is enabled, requests from a specific source (client) IP address are routed to the same endpoint. Source IP Address is selected in this example.

   
3. Click Next.

Step 5: Configure an endpoint group

Each listener is associated with an endpoint group. You can associate an endpoint group with listeners by specifying the regions to which you want to distribute network traffic. After you associate an endpoint group with a listener, traffic is distributed to the optimal endpoint in the associated endpoint group.

To configure an endpoint group, perform the following steps:

1. In the Configure Endpoint Group wizard, configure the endpoint group based on the following parameters:
   • Endpoint Group Name: Enter a name for the endpoint group. The name must be 2 to 128 characters in length, and can contain letters, Chinese characters, digits, underscores (_), and hyphens (-). It must start with a letter or Chinese character.
   • Region: Select the region where the endpoint group is created. The region specifies where the origin servers are located. US (Silicon Valley) is selected in this example.
   • Backend Service: Specify whether the origin servers are deployed on Alibaba Cloud. Alibaba Cloud is selected in this example
   • Reserve Client IP: Specify whether to reserve client IP addresses. When this feature is enabled, the origin servers can obtain client IP addresses. This feature is disabled in this example.
     Note The feature of reserving client IP addresses is available only to users in the whitelist. If you are not included in the whitelist and you want to use the feature, submit a ticket.
   • Endpoint: Configure endpoints.
     • Backend Service Type: Select EIP.
     • Backend Service: Enter the elastic IP address to be accelerated.
     • Weight: Specify a weight for the endpoint. Valid values: 0 to 255. GA distributes network traffic to endpoints based on the predefined weights.
       Notice If you set the weight of an endpoint to 0, Global Accelerator stops distributing network traffic to the endpoint. Proceed with caution.

   
2. Click Next to check the configurations. After you confirm the configurations, click Next.

Step 6: Add a domain name

To add domain names in the Alibaba Cloud DNS console, perform the following steps:

1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console.
2. On the Manage DNS page, click Add Domain Name.
3. In the Add Domain Name dialog box, enter the domain name of your web service, and then click OK.

Step 7: Upgrade Alibaba Cloud DNS

The Free Trial edition of Alibaba Cloud DNS is selected by default. Only the Enterprise Standard edition and Enterprise Ultimate edition can return IP addresses based on geographical locations. You must upgrade your Alibaba Cloud DNS.

To upgrade Alibaba Cloud DNS, perform the following steps:

1. On the Manage DNS page, find the domain name that you have added and click Upgrade in the Actions column.
2. Specify the following parameters to upgrade Alibaba Cloud DNS:
   • Select Edition: Select the edition to which Alibaba Cloud DNS is to be upgraded. You can select Enterprise Standard Edition or Enterprise Ultimate Edition in this example.
   • DNS Protection: Select a protection plan for your domain names.
     • Not Required: does not provide DNS attack defense for domain names that are bound to the selected edition. If a domain name is under a DNS attack, you are notified by emails or SMS messages.
     • DNS Attack Defense Basic: provides basic DNS attack defense for domain names that are bound to the selected edition. The upper limit of basic DNS attack defense is no more than 10 million times of DNS attacks per second.
     • DNS Attack Defense Advanced: provides comprehensive DNS attack defense for domain names that are bound to the selected edition. This feature can protect your domain names against over 100 million DNS attacks per second.

     Not Required is selected in this example.

   • Quantity: Specify the number of domain names that can be bound to an Alibaba Cloud DNS instance. 1 is entered in this example.
   • Agreement of Service: Select the Alibaba Cloud DNS (Subscription) Agreement of Service check box.
3. Click Buy Now and complete the payment.

Step 8: Configure DNS settings

You can configure DNS settings to enable Alibaba Cloud DNS servers to return IP addresses based on the geographical locations of users.

To configure DNS settings, perform the following steps:

1. On the Manage DNS page, find the target domain name, and click Configure in the Actions column.
2. Click Switch Path Type to switch from ISP to Region, and then click OK.
3. Click Add Record.
4. In the Add Record dialog box, set the following parameters and click OK.
   • Type: Select A.
   • Host: Enter the prefix of subdomain names. www is entered in this example.
   • ISP Line: Select Default from the drop-down list.
   • Value: Enter the accelerated IP address of China (Beijing).
   • TTL: Indicates how long a record is cached by a DNS server. A smaller TTL value indicates the less amount of time the resolver holds the information in its cache. 10 minutes is selected in this example.
5. Repeat the preceding steps to add DNS records for accelerated IP addresses of China (Shanghai), China (Guangdong), and regions outside mainland China.

   Type	Host	Path	Value	TTL
   A	www	Default	Accelerated IP address of China (Beijing)	10 minutes
   		Regions outside mainland China	IP address of the origin site
   		China South_Guangdong	Accelerated IP address of China (Shanghai)
   		China East_Shanghai	Accelerated IP address of China (Shanghai)

Step 9: Verify the settings

To test how GA interacts with Alibaba Cloud DNS, perform the following steps:

1. Open the command prompt on computers in China (Shanghai), China (Guangdong), other regions in mainland China, and regions outside mainland China.
2. Run the nslookup <web service domain name> command to check the DNS resolution result.
   The following results are displayed:

   • Alibaba Cloud DNS returns the accelerated IP address of China (Shanghai) for requests from China (Shanghai) and China (Guangdong).
   • Alibaba Cloud DNS returns the accelerated IP address of China (Beijing) for requests from other regions of mainland China.
   • Alibaba Cloud DNS returns the IP address of the origin site in US (Silicon Valley) for requests from regions outside mainland China.