Direct Product Overview
Last updated
Last updated
With Datafree Direct, you can reverse-bill mobile traffic to a customer-owned endpoint.The Datafree Direct service is extremely low latency, secure (traffic is fully encrypted in transit), redundant, and highly scalable, with regional failover. There are two different versions of Direct: D-Direct and S-Direct.
D-Direct allows a customer to forward TCP (HTTP/S) traffic to an endpoint domain or static IP address. Forwarding traffic to a domain gives the customer the flexibility to manage their own domain resolution.If the customer supports Proxy Protocol, D-Direct can pass the client/device IPs to the endpoint (origin server). In the case of unencrypted HTTP traffic, we add the device IP to the X Forwarded-For header.By default, only ports 80 and 443 are open on the D-Direct service.
To configure a D-Direct service, we need to know:
The client domain - This is the domain that is being called from the client device.
The endpoint domain or IP address - The endpoint can either be a customer-owned domain *that is different from the client domain above or a static IP address.
Whether or not you will send a Proxy Protocol Header to us
Whether or not you want us to send the Proxy Protocol Header to your endpoint - The reason for needing the Proxy Protocol Header is to be able to see the client/device IP address.
Prior to using the Datafree D-Direct service, a request from the Mobile Phone goes directly to the endpoint.
Once the information above is gathered, the D-Direct service can be provisioned. After provisioning, it is ready for traffic.In order to go live with D-Direct, at which point the traffic will be datafree, the client domain must simply be pointed to the D-Direct service with a CNAME entry, as below.
Name
Type
Value
app.customer.com
CNAME
dfree-321.datafree9.co
Once your CNAME entry propagates, requests to app.customer.com now go to the D-Direct service before being forwarded to the Endpoint 1234.azurewebsites.net. Your traffic is now datafree.
Please note, if your endpoint is defined as a static IP address instead of a domain, you will need to add an A Record instead of a CNAME.
S-Direct is similar to D-Direct in that it reverse-bills traffic to an endpoint. It differs, however, in that the endpoint must be a static IP address.S-Direct supports TCP, UDP and GRE protocols. All ports/protocols are blocked on the S-Direct service except those specified in the setup. Any individual ports or port ranges can be opened on your dedicated S-Direct service.
To configure an S-Direct service we need to know:
The endpoint (static) IP address - All traffic that comes to your S-Direct service will be forwarded to your endpoint.
Ports/Protocols you want open - All ports remain blocked on your S-Direct service except the ones you specify in the setup.
Client domain (optional) - We like to know the client domain that is datafree so that we can monitor and troubleshoot when necessary. Technically, we do not need this for the S-Direct setup.
Prior to using the Datafree S-Direct service, a request from the Mobile Phone goes directly to the endpoint.
With the above information, the S-Direct service is provisioned and ready for traffic.As with D-Direct, to go live with S-Direct, the client domain must be pointed to the S-Direct service with a CNAME entry, as below.
Name
Type
Value
app.customer.com
CNAME
9876.datafree.co
Once your CNAME entry propagates, requests to app.customer.com now go to the S-Direct service before being forwarded to the Endpoint IP address 8.7.6.5.Your traffic is now datafree.Alternatively, an A Record can be used instead of a CNAME. However, please note that using an A Record may result in infrequent, short (1-2 minute) outages when we push updates which require reprovisioning of the service.
By customer-owned domain, we mean a domain for which the customer has name server access.
