Enable Cross-Border Live Streaming with Global Accelerator - ApsaraVideo Live

Global Accelerator (GA) reduces network latency, jitter, and packet loss to improve your live streaming quality. This topic describes how to configure GA settings in ApsaraVideo Live.

What is GA?

GA is a network acceleration service for global users. By leveraging the high-quality Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) bandwidth and global network infrastructure of Alibaba Cloud, GA allows service providers and end users to connect to the nearest access points. This reduces network issues, such as latency, jitter, and packet loss.

Use ApsaraVideo Live with GA

After you activate GA for a domain name in the ApsaraVideo Live console, ApsaraVideo Live automatically creates a pay-as-you-go GA instance, configures the acceleration areas and listeners for the instance, and binds it to the accelerated path. This speeds up transmission between L2 points of presence (POPs) of Alibaba Cloud CDN and live centers of ApsaraVideo Live.

Note

The GA settings automatically apply to FLV, RTMP, and RTS streams. For the HLS protocol, submit a ticket to have our technical team enable it for you.

Use cases

Streaming quality improvement: Minimize network latency, jitter, and packet loss during live streaming.
Cross-border acceleration: Connect users to the nearest access points worldwide, reducing transmission delays.

Before you begin

To use ApsaraVideo Live with GA, ensure that you have:

GA activated. For more information, see Activate GA.
(For cross-border acceleration) Cross-border acceleration enabled and enterprise identity verification completed. For more information, see Enable cross-border acceleration.

Limitations

Streaming domain limits

You can configure GA settings only for main streaming domains, not for sub-streaming domains.

RAM user limits

By default, RAM users cannot create, access, or manage GA resources. To grant a RAM user these permissions, attach the following policies:

Policy type	Policy name	Description
System	AliyunGlobalAccelerationFullAccess	Full permissions on GA
System	AliyunCDTFullAccess	Full permissions on Cloud Data Transfer (CDT)
Custom	createSLRForLiveGA	CreateServiceLinkedRole permission for service-linked roles

For more information, see Create and grant permissions to a RAM user.

Create the custom policy for CreateServiceLinkedRole

If the error message "You do not have the ram:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission." is returned, you need to attach a custom policy to the RAM user by using your Alibaba Cloud account or as a permission administrator.

Log on to the RAM console.
In the left navigation pane, choose Permissions > Policies.
Click Create Policy.

Click the JSON tab and paste the following content:

{
  "Version": "1",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "ram:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "ram:ServiceName": [
            "gaaccess.live.aliyuncs.com"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Click OK.
Enter a policy name, such as createSLRForLiveGA, and click OK.
In the left navigation pane, choose Identities > Users.
Find the target RAM user and attach the custom policy.

Billing

GA instances in ApsaraVideo Live are pay-as-you-go standard instances. Bills are generated under the GA service.

Billable item	Description	Reference
Instance fee and CU fee	Fee for the standard GA instance, including instance fee and capacity unit (CU) fee	Billing of pay-as-you-go GA instances
Traffic fee	Traffic fee billed by Cloud Data Transfer (CDT)	Traffic billing

Supported regions

The following table lists the acceleration areas and regions for pay-as-you-go GA instances.

Note

The regions in the following table are for reference only. View the latest supported regions in the GA console. For more information, see Acceleration areas and regions.
The following regions require quota application: China (Heyuan), Brazil (Sao Paulo), Thailand (Bangkok), Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh), and UAE (Dubai). On the Quota Center Privileges page, find the accelerated regional whitelist privilege (Quota ID: ga_whitelist/region_whitelist) and click Apply. 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)

Configure GA settings

Configure GA settings using the ApsaraVideo Live console or API operations.

Use the console

Log on to the ApsaraVideo Live console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Domain Names. The Domain Management page appears.
Find the streaming domain that you want to configure and click Domain Settings in the Actions column.
Choose Streaming Management > Cross-border Acceleration.
On the Acceleration Circuits tab, click Create Acceleration Circuit and complete the configuration.

For detailed instructions, see Configure cross-border acceleration.

Use API operations

Call the API operations to configure GA programmatically. For details, see Global Accelerator API reference.