Regional Media Zones
This is an add-on feature.
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 an application, 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 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
- Singapore
- 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 broadcasts, SIP, and Live Captions are not supported in some regions, as shown in the following table.
| Regional Media Zone | Media Routing | Archiving | Broadcast | SIP | Live Captions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| European Union | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Germany | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Australia | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Canada | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Japan | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| South Korea | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Singapore | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Notes:
The SIP and live streaming broadcast API are not available when selecting the Japan, South Korea, or Singapore Regional Media Zone.
The Live Captions API is not available when selecting the Canada, Japan, South Korea, or Singapore Regional Media Zone.
Enabling Regional Media Zones
To enable a Regional Media Zone add-on for your account:
Go to the Vonage customer dashboard and select Video Add-ons in the left-hand menu.
You will see a list of available add-ons and their cost per month. Find the applicable Regional Media Zone (such as "Regional Media Zones - Australia") and click Add - you will need to have enough credit on your account to cover the cost of your chosen region.
Once you have enabled a Regional Media Zone add-on for your account, you can enable it for specific Vonage applications:
Go to the Vonage customer dashboard and select Applications in the left-hand menu.
Find the Video application that you want to configure, then select the options icon and click Edit.
Under Capabilities, navigate to the Video product card and select Show Advanced Features.
In Advanced Settings, click on the drop down under Server Environment to select the required Regional Media Zone.
Click Save Changes to finish configuring your application.