Learn ESA in three minutes
Architecture
ESA offers one-stop cloud service for streamlined network and edge management. It accelerates content delivery across various domains such as Internet, applications, data centers, enterprise offices, and AI, while providing robust, comprehensive protection for data assets.
Global network
With POPs strategically located worldwide, ESA has connected major global cloud service providers, data centers, and ISPs. ESA not only ensures stable content delivery to users, but minimizes end-to-end latency by using the Anycast network.
Web traffic optimization and protection
Backed by AI technologies, ESA can optimize and protect websites and applications at the network and application layers. The Enterprise plan also supports communications between VPCs in the cloud, on-premise, and at the edge, while also securing data centers and data assets. If you want to know more about VPC communication, contact your account manager.
Serverless development platform
By harnessing the boundless cloud and edge computing power, ESA enables all POPs to deliver serverless environments that integrate storage and compute capabilities and key-value storage. Developers can easily use the Node.js-compatible serverless development platform to set up and deploy their applications across global POPs.
Comprehensive security and performance analysis
ESA uses a brand-new log system to collect and store DNS, network-layer, and application-layer logs on the premise of meeting compliance requirements. With the low-latency analytics system, you can access instant analysis results, enabling identification of anomalies in just seconds.
Why ESA?
ESA boasts an extensive global infrastructure network with more than 10,000 Internet service providers (ISPs) connected, more than 3,200 POPs deployed, and a bandwidth of over 180 Tbit/s.
Specifically, ESA delivers the following benefits:
Lightning-fast access
The Anycast network is connected to high-performance POPs, which achieves an average DNS resolution time of less than 30ms for each website globally. In addition, ESA integrates a scheduling system that is able to select the nearest POP to serve client requests, and the smart routing feature to ensure stable, low-latency connections in milliseconds.
All-around protection
ESA integrates native DDoS protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and machine learning algorithms developed by Alibaba Cloud to detect threats against each request. ESA can shield your business against DDoS attacks of over 20 Tbit/s.
Flexible computing
Each ESA POP provides a serverless platform that integrates computing, storage, and networking capabilities. This platform enables you to deploy your business at routines and images and offers auto scaling and key-value storage.
Real-time monitoring
ESA uses a new log collection and data analysis system to collect data in seconds. It also integrates a variety of functional components and multi-dimensional filter conditions to help you implement granular real-time O&M control.
Differences between ESA, DCDN, and CDN
ESA builds upon the foundation of Alibaba Cloud DCDN, offering enhanced features such as faster access, comprehensive protection, and flexible computing.
Faster access
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Cache-based acceleration | Caches static resources such as images, audio and video files, and CSS files on POPs and optimizes the routing and transmission of real-time data dynamically generated by servers such as API operations and database interaction requests. This feature significantly speeds up access and improves user experience. | | Supports both static and dynamic content. | Supports static content. |
DNS | High-performance and secure DNS capabilities that allow you to add DNS records in the console. This reduces DNS resolution time and mitigates service exceptions caused by DNS attacks. | Yes | No | No |
Network optimization | Network optimization and acceleration are performed for users outside China to access Chinese mainland origin resources and for Chinese mainland users to access origin resources outside China. | Yes | No | No |
TCP/UDP proxy | Proxy acceleration and protection for TCP or UDP-based applications such as real-time combat gaming and real-time interactive audio and video streaming. | A single domain name supports multiple ports. A single application can configure both TCP and UDP ports. Supports session persistence. Supports associating load balancing to configure various LB policies and check the health of origin websites.
| | No |
More comprehensive protection
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
WAF | Based on WAF 3.0, ESA can identify and scrub malicious traffic and route only the scrubbed traffic to the origin server. | More comprehensive WAF protection. You can create custom protection rules or create rules from analysis results. | Supports basic WAF protection. | No |
Anti-DDoS | Defends against volumetric DDoS attacks to protect online services. | Entrance, Pro, and Premium plans all support basic DDoS protection. The Enterprise plan supports best-effort protection up to Tbit/s. | Supports up to Tbit/s of DDoS protection. | No |
Bot management | Identifies and prevents attacks on websites or services by malicious or automated bots. | You can integrate Anti-Bot SDK for JavaScript, Android, or iOS for bot management. For more information, see Bots. | Supports basic bot protection. | No |
Origin protection | Allows you to configure your origin to allow only requests from POP IP addresses and shield your origin against malicious attacks or unauthorized access from external IP addresses. | Yes | No | No |
DNS | Protect against large-scale DNS attacks and ensure stable DNS resolution services for extremely high QPS. | Supports handling hundreds of millions QPS for DNS queries. | Supports handling dozens of millions QPS for DNS queries. | No |
Flexible computing
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Edge Routine | Based on the serverless platform, Edge Routine enables you to deploy JavaScript code across POPs. This way, user requests can be responded to and processed by the POP that is closest to users. This significantly reduces latency and enhances user experience. For more information, see Getting started. | | Routine-based deployment | No |
Edge KV | Edge KV provides key-value storage at the edge. You can use Edge Routine to quickly read and use data in Edge KV on the same POP, and deploy lightweight Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) services and API gateway services. | Yes | Supported | No |
Edge Container | Edge Container provides elastic, easy-to-maintain computing resources based on containerized applications. It implements global deployment, approximity-based scheduling, simplified protocol processing, significantly reducing response latency. Edge Container lets you focus on crafting applications without the hassle of scaling, O&M, or underlying infrastructure management. You do not need to purchase server resources. | Yes | No | No |
Easier to use
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Feature | Description | ESA | DCDN | CDN |
Add a website | Allows you to add a website to try out capabilities such as DNS resolution, acceleration, computing, and security. | Acceleration for the root domain and all its subdomains. For more information, see Add a website to ESA. | Accelerates specified domain names. | Accelerates specified domain names. |
SSL/TLS certificate management | Issues certificates for clients. Multiple domains can share the same certificate, which reduces O&M complexity. | You can request client certificates by using the ESA console. Fore more information, see Configure client certificates. Supports free single-domain certificates and wildcard-domain certificates. Certificate pool management.
| No | No |
Plan management | Prepaid plans and value-added paid services are managed separately. This allows you to easily manage costs based on your business volume. You can also upgrade or downgrade your plan as needed. | Yes | No | No |
Rules engine | The new easy-to-use and powerful rules engine enables you to fine tune rule configurations based on your business requirements. | Yes | No | No |
Traffic control | POPs probe the health status of origin servers and use the scheduling system to distribute traffic. The flexible traffic steering balances loads among multiple origin servers, reduces latency, and improves service availability. | Smart routing for optimization of request links. Load balancers that can be used for detecting origin health and for fine-grained traffic allocation and management. For more information, see Overview. Waiting rooms to handle spikes in origin traffic.
| Only configuration of primary/secondary origins and origin weights | Only configuration of primary/secondary origins and origin weights |
Version management | Allows you to maintain different versions for custom website configurations and test, deploy, and roll back configuration changes. For more information, see Getting started with version management. | Yes | No | No |
Elastic Compute Service (ECS)
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