IP Application Accelerator (IPA) is a Layer 4 acceleration feature of Alibaba Cloud DCDN. IPA accelerates TCP and UDP traffic to deliver low latency and high stability for real-time interactions such as social media messaging, online gaming, online education, and financial transactions.
New users cannot purchase DCDN IP Application Accelerator starting on May 1, 2025 at 00:00 (UTC +8). Current users won't be affected.
We recommend you upgrade to ESA to use TCP/UDP proxied application. ESA provides network acceleration and security for applications based on TCP/UDP protocols. It also offers traffic analytics for Layer 4 proxy to help you identify network bottlenecks, abnormal traffic patterns, and causes of service interruptions.
Overview
IPA delivers reliable, low-latency transmission over TCP or UDP. It resolves issues caused by cross-ISP network instability, single-line origin connections, traffic surges, or network congestion, improving transmission performance and user experience. You can also use custom transmission protocols and ports for acceleration without additional configuration. If you want to use IPA,
Enter information. This feature is available to only enterprise users.
Benefits
IPA delivers highly reliable, low-latency network connections and supports custom ports and protocols.
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High reliability: Users in remote areas benefit from stable network services, reducing interruptions and improving experience.
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Low latency: IPA uses optimized POPs distributed across the globe to provide nearby access for clients.
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Custom ports and protocols: Configure custom ports and protocols to improve service experience and reliability.
Scenarios
IPA applies to scenarios where you want to:
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Improve network performance and reliability for services that listen to ports other than 80 and 443.
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Implement acceleration without deploying certificates on Alibaba Cloud CDN or DCDN for services delivered over HTTPS.
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Use custom proprietary protocols, such as the signaling protocol used for gaming and online education.
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Further improve the performance of the first packet of dynamic service data.
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Integrate IPA into SaaS services or enterprise networking to improve reliability and performance.
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Improve the efficiency and reliability of your audio and video transmission.
Key features
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Key feature |
Description |
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Service location |
A service location specifies the region where acceleration is required. You can set it to Chinese Mainland Only, Global, or Global (Excluding the Chinese Mainland). To set the location to regions outside the Chinese mainland or global, Enter information. Origin servers can be deployed anywhere in the world. The following service locations are available:
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Acceleration protocol |
TCP or UDP |
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Acceleration port |
You can use custom acceleration ports. Take note of the following items:
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Source IP address passthrough |
IPA supports TCP Option Address (TOA) and Proxy protocol to pass client IP addresses to origin servers.
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High availability |
IPA supports load balancing and automatic failover across origin servers for high availability. |
Limits
IPA uses shared IP addresses. The IP address of a POP is shared across multiple domain names, and traffic from different customers is routed to different ports. For example, accessing IP1:8084 reaches the service of customer A, while accessing IP1:8086 reaches the service of another customer.
Use cases
IPA delivers reliable, low-latency services across industries such as gaming, education, social networking, and IoT.
Billing
For information about IPA billing, visit the