China CDN Solution: Pros and Cons of CDN Services for China
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What are the limitations of CDN acceleration into China by leading CDN providers? What are the pros and cons of different CDN services for China?
CDN resolves the latency issue of content delivery within China
A CDN is the most ideal solution to decrease latency and accelerate the delivery of web contents, because it possesses points of presences (PoPs) that are strategically situated close to the users, providing low latency and caching that not only accelerate the delivery of static contents, but can also effectively decrease latency for behaviors that cannot be cached, such as POST and websocket, bringing better browsing experience to the users.
Except for China CDN, Leading CDNs’ Performance in China
When it comes to CDN, most people are familiar with CDN providers such as Cloudflare, AWS and Akamai. These CDN vendors possess world-class bandwidths and data centers and focused primarily in the US & European markets or other parts of Asia. However, they tend to be less devoted to the networks in China. To this date, users in China will have to connect to foreign CDN nodes through these international networks with higher latency, in order to access foreign web contents.
The difference is illustrated in the following comparison on monitored test data (latency) in China market. The top figure is a famous global CDN service provider, and the bottom figure shows the latency from a Taiwan-based CDN service provider with in-depth experiences in China. The comparison showed that there is a significant gap between the two, which indicates how the Chinese market differs from others; not all CDN service providers can enjoy the same advantages in China.
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China CDN’s Restriction
CDN service providers in China, such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Huawei Cloud and ChinaCache, possess data centers that are closest to China, which in theory could effectively lower network latency. However, for websites hosted outside of China, the following needs to be considered:
Real-name Certification and ICP Licensing Mechanism
Before using a China CDN or cloud services, one must first pass the name-based verification and obtain the ICP license before setting up servers within China. However, the process for ICP application is time-consuming and expensive, and also runs the risk of ICP approval being rescinded in the future.
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The Great Firewall Blocking Policies
The Great Firewall of China is an issue one must consider when using services provided by China CDN vendors. Depending on changing policies, your website services may be blocked without warning.
ApeiroCDN is a customized CDN service developed by a Taiwan-based develop team, consisting of top local CDN technical talents that focus on realizing the customized content delivery needs of different types of websites around the world. We have in-depth experience working in China market and uses China’s CN2 networks, which allows websites hosted outside of China to maintain their access speed in China even without ICP license. In addition, ApeiroCDN is equipped with Tb+ DDoS mitigation capacity that can defend against DDoS attacks regardless of scale, type and duration, as well as other advantages enjoyed in China. ApeiroCDN brings the Chinese market within your reach, no matter where your website is located.
More advantages in China:
- Auto domain/HTTPS certificate generation and management
HTTP transmission has been listed as unsafe behavior by major browsers, since it delivers web contents in an un-encrypted, plain code format, which is not only susceptible to hacking, but also greatly enhance the chance of being blocked by the Great Firewall of China. HTTPS certificate corresponding to each individual domain is now the basic configuration of websites. ApeiroCDN provides the service to automatically apply for HTTPS certificate after the domain is mapped to CNAME and extend the certificate before it expires.
- Unlimited DDoS mitigation service
Most China-based CDN providers only offer basic DDoS scrubbing service, but with rising frequency of Tb+ DDoS attacks, your services could be easily blackholed or interrupted by China CDN services, or lack the Web application firewall (WAF) that are crucial to address the attacks on the application layer. ApeiroCDN not only enjoys the advantage of low latency in China, but also offers comprehensive DDoS attack defense/scrubbing. Not just exception access speed, ApeiroCDN ensures that your website and business remain open and un-interrupted.
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