Skip to content

General information

This manual provides Global Cloud Network network services descriptions as well as step-by-step guidelines on how to configure them properly. We’ve done our best to write down the whole sequence of actions in the most detailed way, but we can’t promise to foresee everything – for this occasion you have our technical support at your disposal to clarify all the necessary details during the configuration.

Network architecture in brief

Our company uses its own content delivery network (CDN) to provide services. Global Cloud Network network is divided into two functional areas: the core and content distribution servers. The distribution servers are installed in the regions with the majority of end users. Generally, the content is aggregated within the network and is being delivered to end users via the nearest distribution server. Saying “the nearest” we now mean a server with the best general metrics (it’s not necessary for the server picked up to be the nearest one geographically). Redirector forwards the users` requests to the appropriate distribution servers. Redirector is a part of the network core and is actually a DNS server that runs intelligent software operating together with DNS service. Speaking of live streaming, the stream is pre-delivered to publishing servers which together make up the network core, after what it is being forwarded to distribution servers. The main goal of CDN is to bring content, primarily video one, as close to end users as possible. Main CDN services:

  • HTTP Acceleration. HTTP-content is cached on distribution servers as necessary and is delivered from the appropriate server by the user’s request.
  • Live Streaming. It enables broadcasting of the live video streams to large audiences in real time. The stream may be broadcast either from a content provider`s origin server or directly from an IP camera. Another way of using live streaming is broadcasting TV channels over the Internet (which is now realized by nearly all TV-channels).
  • Video on Demand Streaming. It offers an opportunity of watching videos at any time. It’s also possible to start playing a video at any moment, without a necessity of loading the whole file.

Additional CDN services

  • Content access authorization.
  • Access to the network programming interface (API).
  • Stream transcoding.
  • Over-the Air browsing (DVR).
  • Stream recording.