tencent cloud

Overview

You can configure a third-party origin server for your domain in VOD to pull media files from the origin server and distribute the media via VOD. This multi-cloud media distribution solution is enabled by VOD’s CDN capability. This document shows you how to configure and use an origin server with VOD.

Use cases

• Your media assets are stored with a third-party cloud vendor, and the cost of migrating them is high. You can use VOD’s custom origin server feature to deliver your content without migrating your media assets.
• You have high requirements on latency and stuttering and your existing service provider is unable to meet them. You can use VOD’s custom origin server feature to deliver smoother playback and improve your user experience.
• You need more than one channel to distribute your content to ensure the reliability and improve the disaster recovery capability of your business.

Prerequisites

1. You have signed up for a Tencent Cloud account, completed identity verification, and logged in.
2. You have activated VOD.

Supported Origin Server Types

• Self-owned origin servers
• Third-party storage services

Directions

Step 1. Add a domain and configure origin server information

1. Log in to the VOD console and select Distribution and Playback > Domain Name on the left sidebar.
2. Select the Custom origin server domains tab at the top.
   
3. Click Add Domain and enter a domain. For more information, see Customizing Domain Names.
   
4. Enter your origin server information. Currently, self-owned servers and third-party storage are supported.
   

Self-owned servers
If you want to use your existing server as the origin server to distribute media files stored in it via VOD, configure as follows:

Item	Description
Origin server type	Select Self-owned server
Protocol	Select the protocol, which can be HTTP, HTTPS, or “Same as request”.
Origin server address	You can enter multiple IP addresses (separate with commas) or one domain.
Host	For self-owned origin servers, you can specify the host of a domain or IP address that VOD pulls from. If you do not specify it, VOD will pull from the current domain.

Note

• You cannot use your VOD default domain as the origin server address.
• If you select Same as request, HTTP will be used for HTTP requests, and HTTPS will be used for HTTPS requests (your origin server must support HTTPS).
• You can use a domain as the origin server address, but this domain cannot be the same as the domain you use for acceleration.

Third-party storage
If you want to distribute the media files you store in a third-party storage service via VOD’s CDN, configure as follows:

Item	Description
Origin server type	Select Third-party storage
Third-party storage	Currently, Alibaba Cloud OSS and AWS S3 are supported.
Protocol	HTTP or HTTPS
Origin server address	Enter a valid bucket address (cannot contain “http://” or http:// headers).

If you use a private bucket as the origin server, you need to enter a valid access ID and key to authorize VOD to access the bucket.

Step 2. Configure CNAME for your domain

After you add a custom domain in VOD, you need to add a CNAME record for it at your DNS provider before users can access your media files via the domain. For detailed directions, see Configuring CNAME.

Step 3. View and modify origin server information

1. Go to Domain Name, select the Custom origin server domains tab, find the domain you added, and click Set.
   
2. Click Basic Configuration to view or modify the origin server settings of the domain.
   

After completing the above steps, you will be able to distribute media files to end users from a self-owned server or third-party storage service via VOD’s CDN. The process is as follows:

1. After you complete the above settings for a custom domain (for example test.com), when an end user opens the address of a media file under the domain (for example http://www.test.com/test.mp4) in a browser, a request will be sent to the local DNS resolver.
2. Because a CNAME record (www.test.com.cdn.dnsv1.com) has been added for the domain, the request will be referred to Tencent’s proprietary load balancing system Global Server Load Balance (GSLB).
3. GSLB will return a list of IP addresses to the local DNS resolver.
4. The user gets the IP address of the optimal node to access the media file.
5. The end user sends a request to the IP address to visit the media file http://www.test.com/test.mp4.
6. If the test.mp4 file has been cached in the CDN node, the file will be returned to the user. If not, the node will request the file from the origin server you configured, cache the file, and return it to the user.

Note：

Using VOD’s origin server feature to distribute media files will incur playback traffic costs and origin server traffic costs. Playback traffic costs are charged by VOD. For details, see Daily Pay-As-You-Go and Prepaid Packages. Origin server traffic costs are charged by your origin server.