• Getting Started

You’re walking the first steps to become part of a hyper-connected economy through Azion Edge Platform. On your journey with Azion, you’ll find opportunities to explore and improve your projects through new technologies that are constantly being designed to unlock new possibilities.

This documentation page will assist you in the getting started process. It includes building your first edge application, further setting up, and connecting your newly created application to domains and traffic metrics. You’ll also get to know Real-Time Manager (RTM), Azion’s configuration interface, as well as more options to explore Azion products and services.

Real-Time Manager (RTM) is Azion’s configuration interface where you can access all the available products and their settings. It enables you to complete all tasks in Azion’s platform. Through RTM, you can:

• Access and configure your Azion account.
• Build and deploy edge applications.
• Manage your edge applications.
• Access and configure all Azion products and capabilities.

From the homepage, you can see RTM’s header. On the upper-left corner, you can find the Products menu, represented by three horizontal lines, where Azion products and their features are available.

You’ll also see a Status bar indicating how Azion’s systems are operating. You can click the bar and check the status for each of the available Edge Network’s locations.

Next to the Status bar, you can click the Help Center button. It’ll display a series of documentations related to the screen you are currently on and other helpful links.

At the top right corner, you can find the Account menu, where you can see and update information related to your account.

In the Getting Started section, you’ll find three shortcuts:

• Build an Edge Application: this block will guide you through the initial steps to building your first edge application from scratch with the setup that best suits your needs.

• Manage your Domains: use this block to visit the Domains page. There, you’ll be able to manage and add domains to your applications.

  You can create a domain with a TLS certificate granted by Azion. You can also automate domain creation using our API - Azion Domains.

• View Edge Application Metrics: here, you’ll find insights based on your applications’ performance, availability, and security. This link will take you to Real-Time Metrics.

On the right side of RTM’s homepage, you can find helpful links taking you to Azion’s documentation page, Azion’s API library, and to contact the Support team.

Right after the Getting Started section on the homepage, you can find a shortcut to Invite Your Team to Azion. This is an optional step, but if you’re constantly working with a team, inviting them can help you through configurations and the entire working process. Find out more about Teams Permissions.

Below the quick-access options, you can find Azion’s product categories: Build, Secure, Deploy, and Observe. Each of these categories will guide you through your Azion journey and help you set up your applications. Read on to learn how you can explore each category:

• Build: create and manage edge applications and manage domains.
• Secure: secure your applications by creating Edge Firewalls, managing your Intelligent DNS, and operating WAF rules.
• Deploy: deploy Edge Services, Edge Nodes, and Edge Orchestrator.
• Observe: visualize important data using Real-Time Metrics, Real-Time Events, Data Streaming, and Edge Pulse.

After becoming familiar with RTM, you can continue your journey and build your first edge application on Azion. The next few sections will provide clear instructions to configure an application and a domain, in addition to suggesting further steps and contents to enhance your application through Azion’s four categories—Build, Secure, Deploy, and Observe.

Building an edge application is the first step to start using Azion Edge Platform. This documentation assists you in every step of the journey of building an edge application from scratch with Azion’s platform and products.

After logging in to RTM, in the Getting Started section on the homepage, click Build an Edge Application to start creating your own applications.

Once you’re in the building page, complete the setup presented to you.

Azion Edge Application allows you to build your applications to run on Azion Edge platform.

To name your Edge Application you have to fill the text box with a unique new name. This name doesn’t affect how end-users access your application and you can change it at any time.

The platform returns an error message if the name already exists in your library. If it happens, try again with a different name.

A relevant Edge Application name makes your management easier. In case your application relates to:

• Specific domain (www.yourapp.com), use an Edge Application name related to the domain name (”www.yourapp.com” or “yourapp www”).
• Specific origin system, use an Edge Application name related to the origin (“Cloud Bucket for Statics”) as you may associate it with more domain names.
• Specific application usage, use an Edge Application name related to the function (”Checkout application”) as you may associate it with more domain names.

Note: Your Edge Application name exists for administrative purposes. End-user and device access occur on an associated domain name.

Just starting?

To get familiar with the platform and create your first edge application, you can:

• Enter a test name.
• Proceed to “Run a function”.
• Select “Azion - Hello World” in the Choose Edge Function field.
• Click Save to continue.

Or, feel free to explore the options and look around.

Your Edge Application runs serverless in response to events on Edge Nodes of the global Edge Network. DNS resolution is used to dynamic route requests to the best end-to-end connection.

[ User and devices <-> EDGE <-> your application or origin ]

At the Edge Node, an Edge Application associated with the domain name processes each request by executing a Rules Engine.

• Each rule can use powerful criteria on nested “If-then” statements to trigger behaviors from enabled modules, such as run a function or set origin.
• Each rule is executed until all the rules are processed or a rule with a finalizing behavior is found in the path.

Learn more on the documentation page.

In the Choose an option to start section, you select an option to start your Edge Application. To get ready faster, your Edge Application will be built and automatically associated with an Azion Domain according to your selection.

To build the Edge Application and automatically associate it with an Azion Domain, select:

• Run a function

It’s the default option which lists all the functions available in your function library. The Hello World function is your first choice if this is your first time creating one.

• Fetch content from origin

It creates an Edge Application and configures an Origin. Azion fetches your content directly from there and honor cache control headers returned.

Note: In this case, your Edge Application uses the Edge Caching and Application Acceleration modules with explicit policies to cache static files and images on edge network, delivering them directly to your users from the nearest Edge Node without having to access the origin, increasing performance and scalability.

• Build an advanced Edge Application

It enables you to customize Edge Functions and origins servers later.

Still in doubt?

Your decision at this point defines the template and basic information for your application, but it can be changed at any time.

After this step, it’ll be much easier to explore changes to the application and evolve its use.

An Edge Application is a set of resources and functionalities, such as:

• Edge Functions: code and its arguments.
• Edge Caching: usually fetches content from an origin.
• Network: for creating business rules at the edge, which are advanced rules with criteria and behavior.

In the Configure function section, you select the Edge Function you’ll use with your Edge Application.

Azion Edge Functions is a module of your Edge Application that enables you to program and execute serverless functions without the need to provision or manage servers. All processing occurs directly at the edge of the network, closer to users.

How to select an Edge Function function?

1. Click on the Choose Edge Function dropdown list.
2. Select a function from your library in the list. The section with the tabs Code and Args appears.

Note: Functions listed for selection reflect your own function library. If you have no functions in your library, you can only select the Azion — Hello World function.

After selecting the function, a window will appear below, including two tabs: Code and Args. Chosen functions can be visualized in the Code tab and parameterized in the Args tab.

• You can read the function’s code on the Code tab. This tab is for reading only.
• To edit the Args tab, select this tab and click inside the window to add the args for your functions. Function Args should be in JSON format.

Note: click the Get help button below the Code and Args window to get more related information.

After clicking the Next button, a new page appears to confirm the edge application has been successfully created. This pages shows you the following sections:

• Access your Edge Application section includes the link to visit and explore your edge application.
• Build Summary contains the application’s name and function.
• What do you want to do next? provides recommendations regarding advanced options to enhance your edge application: Customize Domain, Manage Edge Application, View Edge Application Metrics, View Edge Application Logs, and the Back to Home button.

The Help Center window automatically shows you a recommendation with next steps related to the setup option you chose.

Your edge application has been deployed! Now you can explore more Azion modules and configure advanced settings for your edge application:

• Customize your domain: add a custom domain to your edge application. This process is very important as you’ll need to have Domains configured to connect your edge application to other Azion’s products.
• Point your traffic to Azion: configure your DNS preferences to handle your requests through Azion Edge Network.
• View Analytics: gain powerful insights into your performance, availability, and security through Real-Time Metrics.
• Manage your edge application: you can customize or edit its settings anytime you want.

You can also configure the business rules required using the available modules:

• Application Acceleration: it accelerates the performance of applications and APIs by optimizing protocols and building advanced request and response rules.
• Edge Caching: a standard module for all of your Edge Applications in Azion. Reduces latency and has a high transfer rate using Azion’s global and highly distributed Edge Network.
• Edge Functions: a module that allows you to program your own Edge Functions to be run on Azion’s Edge.
• Image Processor: it automates the processing of images in the workflow, allowing you to resize, crop, and apply filters to large quantities of images.
• Load Balancer: a module that allows you to balance the traffic going to the origin servers.

Now that you’ve already started your journey of moving to the edge, you can explore the rest of our documentation page and find out more about Azion products, Azion APIs, and a few guides selected for you.

Additionally, when you create your first edge application on Azion, you’ll receive an email suggesting Next Steps. This way, you’ll know some of the options to set up your applications and how to take advantage of Azion Edge Platform.

After building and deploying an edge application, you can customize or edit its settings anytime you want.

To see what are your current settings and edit them, log in to Real-Time Manager (RTM). From the homepage, follow these steps:

1. Select the Products Menu on the top left corner.
2. In the Build section, select Edge Application.
3. From the list of your Edge Applications, choose the one you want to see or edit.

After selecting the edge application you’ll work on, you’ll be directed to a page with the following tabs:

• Main Settings
• Origins
• Device Groups
• Error Response
• Cache Settings
• Functions
• Rules Engine

The Main Settings, Origins, Cache Settings, and Functions tabs need to be configured to have your edge application running.

The Device Groups, Error Response, and Rules Engine tabs are of optional use.

See how to configure the mandatory tabs next:

In this section, you’ll define the main fields related to the delivery of your Applications: HTTP or HTTP & HTTPS. And, also, the Minimum TLS version and Ports fields need configuring.

Origins is where you define your origin data, an essential piece of information on your Edge Application. See what’s necessary for each field below.

In this section, you’ll define the cache options for your content. There are two types of cache:

After defining the previous information, click Save to finish this step.

Watch the details about building and setting up your edge applications in this video tutorial on Azion’s YouTube channel:

Now that you’ve finished setting up your edge application, you must configure a Domain for it. This process is very important as you’ll need to have Domains configured to connect your edge application to other Azion products.

On Real-Time Manager (RTM), your main domain (example: myapp.com) and all your subdomains (example: user.myapp.com) must each be configured as a standalone domain.

To access the Domains configuration page, you can click on Manage your Domains from the RTM homepage. You can also find Domains on the Products Menu.

If you have just created an edge application in the Build from scratch process, you can find the Domains page on the What do you want to do next? section on the page that appears after the deployment.

On the Domains page, you can see all your edge applications listed. To set up a Domain, follow the steps below:

1. Click on Add Domain.
2. In Add Configuration Name, choose a name for your domain.

You can use the same name as your domain name.

3. Select the Digital Certificate you’ll use — it can be the standard Azion (SAN) or any third party Digital Certificate.
4. Write all Canonical Names (CNAMES) your domain has.
5. If you want your users to access your application by CNAME only, activate the CNAME Access Only switch.
6. In Edge Application, select the one your Domain will be connected to from the dropdown list.
7. Make sure the Active switch is on.
8. Click the Save button.

Azion’s highly distributed architecture includes edge nodes strategically located to deliver the best performance, availability, and resiliency to customers, with a software-defined routing and built-in protection.

By pointing your traffic to Azion, the Edge Network will attend every content request from your edge application. Through the Edge Traffic Router, it selects the nearest, healthiest Edge Node to handle the request, deliver the content, and process the business rules.

After you’ve associated a custom Domain Name System (DNS) with your edge application, you need to configure it with your DNS provider. Your DNS provider must know where to find your application and what to return to users that access your domain.

This process won’t simply redirect users that access myapp.com to edge_application_id.map.azionedge.net but link your application to your DNS—and all CNAMES associated with it.

To do so, you have two options:

1. Relying on Azion Intelligent DNS to create, host, and secure your domains.

2. Choosing to use a third-party DNS provider, such as GoDaddy, OpenDNS, Namecheap, and so on. This configuration must be completed outside Azion RTM interface and on your DNS provider user panel.

If you choose a third-party DNS Provider:

1. Go to your DNS provider user panel and look for ”DNS Configuration” or ”DNS Manager“.
2. Inside the DNS Manager, add the link to your edge application (for example: edge_application_id.map.azionedge.net) on the DNS Host Record field.
3. Save it, wait a few minutes, and check to see if it works.

Your application should now be accessible by typing your DNS as a URL.

Configuration settings may change according to different providers.

After finishing the configuration, you can confirm the incoming traffic through Real-Time Metrics.

Your application should now be accessible by typing your DNS as a URL.