Edge Node Service (ENS) delivers edge computing infrastructure built on more than 3,200 Alibaba Cloud CDN points of presence (POPs) that cover all regions and ISPs in the Chinese mainland and more than 70 countries and regions outside the Chinese mainland. With end-to-end latency under 20 milliseconds and over 99.9% network reliability, ENS brings compute power close to end users — making it a fit for cloud gaming, cloud rendering, and real-time applications.
Supported services
| Category | Services |
|---|---|
| Computing | Virtual machine, Bare metal, Heterogeneous computing, ACK |
| Network | VPC, Edge NAT gateway, Elastic IP Address (EIP), Edge Load Balancer (ELB), HAVIP, Elastic network interface (ENI) |
| Storage | Cloud disk, Local disk, Collaborative storage EOS, Collaborative storage NAS, Snapshots |
| Image | Public images, Custom images |
| Security | Security group, Network ACL |
| Cross-node network | Leased line, SDWAN |
Capabilities
Comprehensive computing and IaaS
ENS provides a full stack of infrastructure services at the edge:
Computing: Virtual machines, edge containers, bare metal instances, bare metal hosting, and heterogeneous computing — choose the form factor that matches your workload.
Network: Classic network, VPC, Edge Load Balancer (ELB), Elastic IP Address (EIP), and NAT gateway for flexible connectivity options.
Storage: Cloud disk, collaborative EOS, and collaborative NAS for persistent and shared storage at the edge.
Deploy and associate computing, storage, and network resources to build an edge infrastructure without additional integration work.
Centralized resource management
Provision edge resources across regions and Internet service providers (ISPs) from a single control plane. The system automatically selects optimal edge nodes and completes provisioning within seconds. Batch operations and scaling controls let you adjust edge computing capacity as demand changes.
Cloud-edge and edge-edge collaboration
ENS supports three collaboration modes for distributed architectures:
Cloud-edge synergy: Coordinate workloads between central cloud regions and edge nodes.
Edge-edge synergy: Distribute tasks across multiple edge nodes for parallel processing.
Edge-device synergy: Connect edge nodes directly to end devices for low-latency data processing.
Resources are provisioned across multiple nodes in minutes. Internet and leased line transport channels provide secure, stable networking between distributed nodes, enabling collaborative scheduling of computing resources while reducing data transmission costs.
Scenario-specific solutions for interactive applications
ENS includes native support for high-resource, latency-sensitive applications:
Cloud gaming and cloud rendering: Supports ARM+Android and x86+Windows heterogeneous computing. Existing applications run without modification or re-optimization.
Multiboxing: Run multiple game clients simultaneously on a single instance to improve resource utilization.
Cloud applications: Deploy interactive applications close to users for consistent, low-latency experiences.
Global edge coverage
ENS is built on Alibaba Cloud's CDN infrastructure:
3,200+ POPs across all regions and ISPs in the Chinese mainland
900+ POPs outside China, covering more than 70 countries and regions, with last-mile cloud migration support
Under 20 ms end-to-end latency
Over 99.9% network reliability
ISP data centers at the top tier support real-time network detection and troubleshooting, keeping edge nodes stable and performant.