Using Global Accelerator to Accelerate Access to an Application

Operation Process

Step 1: Apply for a Cross-Border Permit (Mandatory for Cross-Border Communications)

In accordance with the laws and administrative regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of the People's Republic of China, only China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom are allowed for cross-border network communications, and a cross-border permit is required if you carry out business activities outside the Chinese mainland.

If the acceleration area is inside the Chinese mainland but the endpoint group is outside the Chinese mainland, or if the endpoint group is inside the Chinese mainland but the acceleration area is outside the Chinese mainland, you need to apply for a cross-border permit.

1. Log in to the management console.
2. Click in the upper left corner and choose Networking > Global Accelerator.

   The Global Accelerator page is displayed.

3. In the navigation pane on the left, click Cross-border Permits.
4. Click Request a Cross-border Permit.

   The Cross-Border Service Application System page is displayed.

5. On the application page, set related parameters and upload related materials.

   Table 1 Online cross-border permit application

   Parameter	Description
   Applicant Name	The applicant name, which must be the same as the company name in the Letter of Commitment to Information Security.
   Huawei Cloud UID	The account ID to log in to the management console. You can take the following steps to obtain your account ID. Log in to the management console. Move you cursor over the username in the upper right corner and select My Credentials from the drop-down list. On the API Credentials page, view the Account ID.
   Bandwidth(M)	The bandwidth size, which must be the same as the bandwidth in the Letter of Commitment to Information Security. The information is for reference only and does not affect the actual service bandwidth.
   Start Date	For reference only.
   Termination Date	For reference only.
   Customer Type	The customer type. Select a type as required.
   Country of the Customer	Country where the applicant is located.
   Contact Name	-
   Contact Number	-
   Type of ID	-
   ID Number	-
   Scope of Business	Briefly describe the main business.
   Number of Employees	For reference only.
   Branch Location Country	Country where the applicant branch is located. Set this parameter as required.

   Table 2 Required materials

   Material	Signature	Seal	Description
   A scanned copy of your company's business license	-	√	See the template Huawei Cloud provides for the position of the seal.
   A scanned copy of Huawei Cloud Cross-Border Circuit Service Agreement	√	√	Sign the material on the signature block. Stamp the seal over the signature.
   A scanned copy of China Unicom Letter of Commitment to Information Security of the Cross-Border Circuit Service	√	√	Sign the material on the signature block. Stamp the seal over the signature. Specify the bandwidth you estimated and your company name.

6. Click Submit.

Step 2: Create a Global Accelerator

To use Global Accelerator for faster access, you first need to create a global accelerator.

1. Log in to the management console.
2. On the homepage, click in the upper left corner and choose Networking > Global Accelerator.

   The Global Accelerator page is displayed.

3. Click Buy Global Accelerator.
4. Specify the parameters listed in Table 3.
   Figure 2 Creating a global accelerator
   

   Table 3 Parameters required for creating a global accelerator

   Parameter	Example Value	Description
   Name	ga-test	Name of the global accelerator you want to create. You can enter up to 64 characters. Only letters, digits, and hyphens are allowed.
   Enterprise Project	default	An enterprise project you would like to use to centrally manage your Global Accelerator resources. You can use an existing enterprise project or create one.
   Applicability	Outside the Chinese mainland	Where the global accelerator will be used. There are two options: Outside the Chinese mainland or Chinese mainland. Outside the Chinese mainland is selected by default.
   IP Address Type	IPv4	The type of the IP address used by the global accelerator. IPv4 is selected by default.
   Tags	example_key1 example_value1	Tags that identify global accelerators. They can be modified.
   Description	test	Supplementary information about the global accelerator. You can enter up to 255 characters.

5. Click Next.

   The Add Listener page is displayed.

Step 3: Add a Listener to the Global Accelerator

Associate an endpoint group with the listener in the AP-Singapore region and add endpoint 1 and endpoint 2 to the endpoint group. The listener will listen to requests and routes them to the two endpoints based on the client affinity and weight you set.

For details about the parameters, see Table 4.

Figure 3 Adding a listener

Step 4: Associate an Endpoint Group with the Listener

Associate an endpoint group with the listener in the CN-Hong Kong region, and add endpoint 3 and endpoint 4 to this endpoint group.

1. Click Add Endpoint Group and specify the parameters listed in Table 5.

   Table 5 Parameters required for adding an endpoint group

   Item	Parameter	Example Value	Description
   Endpoint Groups	Name	endpointgroup2	Name of the endpoint group. Each listener can be associated with only one endpoint group in a given region. You can enter up to 64 characters. Only letters, digits, and hyphens are allowed.
   	Region	CN-Hong Kong	Region where the endpoint group is used.
   	Description	-	Supplementary information about the endpoint group. You can enter up to 255 characters.
   	Traffic Dial	1	The percentage of traffic directed to the endpoint group. If you increase the traffic dial, more requests will be distributed to this endpoint group. If you set the traffic dial to 0, no requests will be distributed to this endpoint group. The value ranges from 0 to 100. NOTE: If a listener has multiple endpoint groups, traffic will be first distributed to the endpoint group with the lowest latency and then to other endpoint groups based on the traffic dial value you set.
   	Endpoint	97.xx.xx.159 10.xx.xx.240	An endpoint serves as a single point of contact for clients, and Global Accelerator distributes incoming traffic across healthy endpoints. Endpoint 3: EIP bound to server 3 (97.xx.xx.159) Endpoint 4: EIP bound to server 4 (10.xx.xx.240) Set the weight of endpoint 3 to 1, and the weight of endpoint 4 to 4.
   Health Check	Health Check	Enable	Whether to enable health check. If you disable health check, requests may be forwarded to unhealthy endpoints.
   	Protocol	TCP	The health check protocol can be TCP. Default value: TCP.
   	Port	80	The port used for health check. The port number ranges from 1 to 65535.
   	Advanced Settings
   	Interval (s)	5	The maximum time between two consecutive health checks, in seconds. The interval ranges from 1 to 60.
   	Timeout (s)	5	The maximum time required for waiting for a response to a health check request, in seconds. The timeout ranges from 1 to 60.
   	Maximum Retries	3	The maximum number of health check retries allowed. The value ranges from 1 to 10.

   In this example, users in the Singapore branch have faster access to the application on servers in the CN South-Guangzhou region than to that in the CN-Hong Kong region. Requests are preferentially sent to servers in the CN South-Guangzhou region.

   If the percentage of traffic directed to the endpoint group 1 and endpoint group 2 are set to 80%, requests from users in the Singapore and Hong Kong branches are distributed as follows:

   • 80% of the requests from users in Singapore will be sent to endpoint group 1, and the remaining 20% to the endpoint group 2.
   • 80% of the requests from users in Hong Kong will be sent to the endpoint group 2, and the remaining 20% to the endpoint group 1.
   Figure 4 Cross-border traffic dial
   
2. Click Save.
3. Click Next and confirm the configuration.
4. Click Submit.
5. If message "Accelerator xxx created successfully" is displayed, click Finish.

Step 5: Verify Acceleration

The listener uses TCP to receive requests from clients, so you can run the curl command to verify that the global accelerator is working normally. Run the curl command before and after you configure Global Accelerator and compare the values of time_connect.

1. Before you configure Global Accelerator, run the following command on a server in the tested region:

   curl -o /dev/null -s -w "time_connect: %{time_connect}\ntime_starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer}\ntime_total: %{time_total}\n" "http[s]://<IP>[:<Port>]"

   

   • IP: EIP bound to the application server.
   • Port: HTTP port number used by the application server.
   • time_connect: time taken to establish a TCP connection, in seconds. It is from the time when a TCP connection request is initiated to the time when the connection is established.
   • time_starttransfer: time when transfer starts, in seconds. It is from the time when the client sends a request to the time when the endpoint replies with the first byte.
   • time_total: total connection time, in seconds. It is from the time when the client sends a request to the time when the endpoint responds to the request.
2. After you configure Global Accelerator, run the following command:

   curl -o /dev/null -s -w "time_connect: %{time_connect}\ntime_starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer}\ntime_total: %{time_total}\n" "http[s]://<IP>[:<Port>]"

   

   Set IP in the command to the anycast IP address provided by Global Accelerator.

3. Compare the values of time_connect and view the latency before and after acceleration.