Global Traffic Manager (GTM) released a new version on November 16, 2020
Alibaba Cloud DNS provided a new GTM version on November 16, 2020. However, users can still use the previous version in the Alibaba Cloud DNS console to ensure business continuity.
Description
The new version of GTM provides two editions: Standard Edition and Ultimate Edition.
The new GTM Ultimate Edition supports smart access policies, including access policy based on geographical locations and access policy based on latency.
The new GTM Ultimate Edition supports smart DNS resolution based on different granularities. You can use GTM based on carriers. The Chinese carriers including China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng, China Education Network, and China Broadcast Network are supported in all Chinese provinces and municipalities. You can also use GTM based on regions. GTM is internationally provided based on countries.
The new GTM Ultimate Edition supports setting the minimum health check interval to 15 seconds and the global time-to-live (TTL) to 1 second. This way, a failover can be completed within 90 seconds.
The new version of GTM supports IPv6 addresses.
Version comparison
The following table describes the differences between the previous and new versions of GTM.
Feature/Version | Previous GTM Standard Edition | New GTM Standard Edition | New GTM Ultimate Edition |
Failover period (Failover period of GTM = Time period required to detect failures + Time period required to achieve a network-wide switchover) | Assume that the health check interval is set to 1 minute, the global TTL is set to 60 seconds, and the number of consecutive failures is set to 3. GTM can identify failures within about 4 minutes and then initiate a switchover. The switchover takes effect across the network within about 60 seconds. The actual failover period depends on the caching time that is set by carriers. | Assume that the health check interval is set to 1 minute, the global TTL is set to 60 seconds, and the number of consecutive failures is set to 3. GTM can identify failures within about 4 minutes and then initiate a switchover. The switchover takes effect across the network within about 60 seconds. The actual failover period depends on the caching time that is set by carriers. | Assume that the health check interval is set to 15 seconds, the global TTL is set to 10 seconds, and the number of consecutive failures is set to 3. GTM can identify failures within about 1 minute and then initiate a switchover. The switchover takes effect across the network within about 10 seconds. The actual failover period depends on the caching time that is set by carriers. |
Access policy | Access policy based on geographical locations | Access policy based on geographical locations | Access policy based on geographical locations and access policy based on latency |
Address type for the latency-based access policy | N/A | IPv4 | IPv4 |
Address types for the location-based access policy | IPv4 addresses and domain names | IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, and domain names | IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, and domain names |
Health check interval | 60 | 60 | 15 or 60 |
Load balancing policies | Supports load balancing for application IP addresses | Supports load balancing for address pools and application IP addresses | Supports load balancing for address pools and application IP addresses |
Maximum number of access policies | 10 | 10 | 20 |
Geographical locations | You can use GTM based on carriers. The Chinese carriers including China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, and Dr. Peng are supported. You can also use GTM based on regions. Chinese regions include North China, South China, East China, Northeast China, Northwest China, Southwest China, and Central China. Outside China, GTM is provided based on continents. | You can use GTM based on carriers. The Chinese carriers include China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng, and Alibaba Cloud. You can also use GTM based on regions. Chinese regions include North China, South China, East China, Northeast China, Northwest China, Southwest China, and Central China. Outside China, GTM is provided based on continents. | You can use GTM based on carriers. The Chinese carriers including China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Dr. Peng, China Education Network, China Broadcast Network, and Alibaba Cloud are supported in all Chinese provinces and municipalities. You can also use GTM based on regions. Chinese regions include North China, South China, East China, Northeast China, Northwest China, Southwest China, and Central China. Outside China, GTM is provided based on continents. |
Maximum number of address pools for each instance | 10 | 10 | 20 |
Maximum number of IP addresses and domain names in an address pool | 20 | 20 | 20 |
Maximum number of associated address pools in an address pool set | N/A | 10 | 10 |
Minimum number of available addresses | 1-9 | 1-200 | 1-200 |
Minimum global TTL | 60, 120, 300, or 600 seconds | 60, 120, 300, or 600 seconds | 1, 5, 10, 30, 60, 120, 300, or 600 seconds |
Maximum number of health check nodes | 7 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Number of health check tasks | N/A | 100 per month | 100 per month |
Maximum number of alert notifications | N/A | 1,000 for a month | 2,000 for a month |
Customize alert notification methods based on alert event types | Unsupported | Supported | Supported |
Upgrade the previous version to the new version
The previous version of GTM cannot be upgraded to the new version of GTM. If you want to use the new version, you can purchase a GTM instance of the new version and configure the GTM instance. Then, configure the DNS settings to point the sub-domain to the canonical domain name that is provided by the GTM instance.
Billing
For information about billing methods, see Pricing.