Case Study -- How Tencent EdgeOne Helps Global Customers Deliver Performance & Security in China

In a recent batch migration project we carried out last month, we managed to help our customer improve their online performance by 44% (over their previous CDN solution) while ensuring a peace of mind against cyber security attacks.

1. Background

Nowadays CDN and cloud security solution is a must for all online businesses, including e-commerce, financial services, streaming, social media and gaming. However, you may or may not know that delivering into China has its unique challenges, which includes:

● ICP license requirements for contents to deliver from within China, by regulations

● Cross-border gateways (also known as the Great Firewall) slowing down requests from origin servers located outside of China

● Cyber-security landscapes different from the rest of the world

2. Why web applications perform better when powered by Tencent EdgeOne

Simply because we know the China network situation and ecosystem better as almost all Internet users in China connect with us on a daily basis. With our 2300+ CDN PoPs in China, our service is highly distributed and we deliver a 2Tbps traffic in China on a normal day.

3. Working with a different CDN vendor globally while having Tencent EdgeOne deliver in China

In fact many of our western customers are already doing this today and more to come. For customer hostnames that already have an ICP registered, The same hostname can be used to deliver into both China and the rest of the world. This can be achieved using Tencent EdgeOne Traffic Scheduling Management feature or any Geo-based traffic management solution.

In a recent project we onboarded a global trade information provider with both their dot-com and dot-com-dot-cn hostnames serving contents to China users and customer configured Tencent EdgeOne in such a way that another western CDN's edge servers were used as the origin servers of EdgeOne, therefore offloading the real origin infrastructure and leaving the authentication and security authentication tasks to their CDN vendor outside of China.

Customer did experience some challenges as the security rules on the western CDN triggered false alarms when EdgeOne service sent requests to them on behalf of the real users. This was easily resolved by whitelisting EdgeOne IPs with the cooperation from the western CDN vendor.

4. Is it really possible to dig a hole on the Great Firewall?

Some of the vendors claim that they can bypass (or dig a hole on) the Great Firewall and achieve better performance. That's completely misleading. Let's put aside the discussion about content censorship and focus on performance. Large-scale firewalls like the China National Firewall typically work in 'bypass model', as shown below:

Unless unauthorized contents detected and blocked, the Firewall is not even in the traffic route and therefore not slowing down the requests and responses. So encrypting or embedding contents into VPN will not accelerate delivery at all. The real reason for packet losses and long latency observed on cross-border website access is actually due to the limited border gateways equipped with the Firewall capability, causing network congestions.

Tencent EdgeOne has a great value add feature called Cross-MLC-border acceleration that works in a way it reserves some VIP fast lanes with the same types of Firewalls still in operation but less amount of traffic is routed through this *paid* fast lane and therefore less congestions.

Conclusion: Tencent EdgeOne is better integrated with the China network environment and can provide the extra level of performance via a reserved VIP channel for premium customers.

5. Migration steps if you already using a different CDN but keen to onboard Tencent EdgeOne

Tencent professional service team provides a structured approach helping and/or guiding our customers to migrate quickly and easily onto EdgeOne with great performance and security:

(1) Account Setup & Domain Registration / Verification

Created Tencent Cloud accounts and registered a site domain for seamless access.

(2) SSL Certification Management

Used existing SSL certificates or generated free certificates from Tencent Cloud.

(3) Configuration & Optimization

Implemented rule-based configurations and fine-tuned settings with Tencent’s support team.

(4) Spoof Testing on Tencent Staging Platform

Conducted non-intrusive DNS spoof tests to verify caching and routing without affecting production.

(5) Traffic Transition & Validation

Gradually redirected traffic with automated and manual testing to ensure performance, security, and functionality.

(6) Content Pre-Warming

Preloaded cached content and optimized cross-border routes for stable, high-speed connectivity.

(7) Phased Go Live

Executed phased CNAME cutover via console for minimal disruption.

(8) Ongoing Post-Migration Validation

Provided continuous monitoring, fine-tuning, and performance optimization via 24/7 support.

In the cases that customers have an exported version of the existing CDN services, Tencent professional service team can also help to analyze, convert, and try importing the previously working configurations, saving the time to configure on EdgeOne from scratch. Please contact our presales support team for more information and details.

Reflection and summary

Key experience summary

(1) Standardized migration process ensures efficient delivery

A good planning and cooperation acquired from the existing CDN vendor is crucial to the success and efficiency to the migration. In the recent project we went through, we managed to migrate 100+ hostnames in 7 days, including tuning on performance and security rules.

(2) Performance optimization brings business value improvement

Regardless how well the configuration exporting and importing works, It is still important to go through the fine-tuning process for the best performance and protection. This is because different platform has different design principals and therefore different details may need to be reviewed manually.

(3) Zero downtime migration ensures business continuity

During the migration process, EdgeOne adopted a seamless switching strategy to avoid business interruptions caused by migration, ensure stable operation of the website, and make full preparations for enterprises before switching.

Summary

This successful migration case fully verifies the advantages of Tencent Cloud EdgeOne in global content delivery, website acceleration and security protection. EdgeOne helps enterprises achieve faster access speeds, lower latency and more stable service experience through excellent technology, intelligent cache optimization, advanced cross-border connections and 24/7 technical support. Tencent Cloud EdgeOne is the trusted and preferred solution.