Regional Media Zones
With the Regional Media Zone feature, Vonage Video API clients route all media traffic via media servers hosted inside a specific regional zone. This can support privacy requirements for healthcare, finance, and other applications.
This is an add-on feature. See Enabling Regional Media Zones.
The Vonage Video API platform includes media servers located worldwide to provide a global reach. However, there are times when media traffic must be restricted or geofenced to a specific region or country — for example, when privacy policy requirements or legislation are involved. The Regional Media Zones feature provides advanced security with this finer level of control.
When you enable a Regional Media Zone for a project for a project, all sessions created with that project API key will use media servers in that zone.
In addition to restricting media traffic, you can use the EU Proxy feature to restrict non-media traffic to use servers within the European Union.
Tighter media controls
A Regional Media Zone is a collection of one or more media routers in the same geographical region. The zone can be as large as a continent or as small as a country (depending on the Regional Media Zone). Media (audio-video streams) are only sent to the media routers that sit within that zone.
Regional Media Zones are available in the following regions:
- U.S.
- European Union
- Australia
- Canada
- Germany
- Japan
- South Korea
Regional Media Zones help companies honor privacy policy requirements, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S., the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, and the Australian Privacy Principles, to name a few.
In addition to media routers and their routing of media streams, using a Regional Media Zone also limits archiving services to servers in the selected region. However, other services, such as Live Streaming Broadcast (RTMP/HLS), SIP, Live Captions, Experience Composer, and Audio Connector are not supported in some regions, as shown in the following table.
| Regional Media Zone | Media Routing | Archiving | Live Streaming Broadcast (RTMP/HLS) | SIP | Audio Connector | Live Captions | Experience Composer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| European Union | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Germany | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Australia | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Canada | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Japan | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| South Korea | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Notes:
The SIP, Audio Connector and Live Streaming Broadcast (RTMP/HLS) API are not available when selecting the Japan or South Korea Regional Media Zone.
The Live Captions API is not available when selecting the Japan or South Korea Regional Media Zone to isolate media in those regions.
The Experience Composer is not available when selecting the Australia or Canada or Japan or South Korea Regional Media Zone.
For access to Regional Media Zones Brazil or Singapore, or additional information, please contact us.
Enabling Regional Media Zones
To enable a Regional Media Zone add-on for your account:
Go to your Video API account and select Account settings in the left-hand menu.
Find the applicable Regional Media Zone (such as "Regional Media Zones - Australia") and click Add to account.
Once you have enabled a Regional Media Zone add-on for your account, you can enable it for projects in the account:
Go to your Video API account and select a project in the left-hand menu.
Under Project Settings, scroll to Advanced Settings and click the Edit link.
In the Server Environment drop-down list, select the applicable Regional Media Zone (such as "Regional Media Zones - US") and click the Save button.
Once you enable a Regional Media Zone for a project, all sessions created with that project API key will use media servers in that zone.