Frequently Asked Questions

What is IO River?

IO River is a Multi-Edge orchestration platform that unifies delivery, routing, and configuration across multiple CDNs through a single control layer.

How does IO River differ from a traditional CDN?

Unlike a single CDN, IO River doesn’t sell capacity. It manages and optimizes your existing CDNs to improve performance, cost, and resilience.

What is a Virtual CDN (VCDN)?

A Virtual CDN is a unified delivery platform composed of multiple CDNs operating as one service, optimized automatically for cost, performance, and availability.

How does IO River’s Multi-CDN orchestration work?

IO River connects to your CDNs via API, continuously monitors performance, and steers traffic in real time according to your defined business and technical rules.

What kind of support is included in the plan?

24/7 email, Slack, and WhatsApp-based support covering first-level support. Phone support during local working hours (customer's local timelocal to the customer).

Does IO River offer 24/7 support?

Yes, 24/7 email, Slack, and WhatsApp-based support covering first-level support.

How does IO River handle HTTPS certificates and SSL termination?

IO River provides full certificate management, allowing you to create or import certificates that are automatically deployed and renewed across all CDNs. TLS termination occurs at each CDN provider, not through IO River, since traffic never passes through our platform.

How is routing logic updated in real-time?

IO River continuously monitors traffic through hundreds of global agents, Catchpoint nodes, and NS1 RUM data to track performance and availability. Our steering algorithms use these live inputs to optimize routing decisions in real time.

How are incidents handled and communicated?

We keep a 24x7 NOC acting as the first responder to handle or escalate incidents reported by the field. We have a global, widely spread/deployed monitoring network of servers and clients/ agents combining static and client-based performance and availability monitoring that triggers automatic actions - that can turn/steer/move traffic from one Edge provider to another till the incident is handled/ solved and ok to restore and execute the original delivery policy.

What SLAs does IO River offer?

The details are here. See documentation

Does IO River support performance testing and benchmarking?

Yes. IO River’s performance-penalty policy ensures traffic only flows through high-performing CDNs, validated during POC testing.

Do you offer case studies or proof of concept options?

Of course. See our case studies.

What advantages does IO River bring to retail?

IO River keeps retail sites available during traffic peaks like holidays, preventing slowdowns and revenue loss.

Are there compliance differences between the VCDN and Multi-CDN products?

No, both follow the same compliance and data protection standards.

Which industries benefit most from IO River?

AdTech, OTT, Streaming, and Gaming all benefit from lower delivery costs, better QoE, and uninterrupted availability.

Does IO River offer APIs or Terraform integration?

Yes, both are supported. See documentation.

Does IO River function as a single point of failure?

No. IO River doesn’t sit in the delivery path, so even if IO River is offline, your CDNs continue operating normally.

Which CDNs are supported?

IO River integrates with over 15 CDN providers globally.

How are edge functions deployed and managed?

Edge functions are deployed via IO River’s unified control plane for consistent behavior across CDNs.

Can IO River improve performance in specific geographies?

Yes, by steering traffic to the best-performing CDN in each region in real time.

How do advanced edge functionalities work?

You can deploy code once and manage it across every CDN via IO River’s unified management layer powered by edge compute.

How do the basic edge functionalities work?

They extend CDN capabilities where vendors lack certain features through IO River’s API and edge compute.

How does IO River help streaming and OTT companies?

By reducing buffering, improving playback stability, and optimizing delivery during live traffic spikes.

How does IO River ensure high availability?

Through active-active infrastructure that continuously distributes and balances traffic.

Do I need to provide my TLS certificate to IO River?

IO River offer 3-options: 1) Creating a Certificate - IO River will create the certificate for you and will make sure to renew it automatically as needed. 2) Importing a Certificate - You can bring your own certificate, and IO River will make sure to deploy it on all of your CDN accounts. 3) Using external certificates - you can deploy the certificates to the CDNs by yourself, and IO River will use them in your services.

How much control do I have over steering rules?

Full control. You define steering based on performance, cost, or availability, and decide which CDNs to include.

What monitoring and analytics dashboards are available?

IO River provides full visibility across all CDNs (including errors, traffic, hits, and geo distribution), through two dashboards for performance and availability.

What happens during a CDN outage?

IO River instantly detects failures and automatically reroutes traffic to secondary CDNs without manual intervention.

Does IO River support alerting or automated routing based on metrics?

Yes, you can set custom alerts and automate routing based on real-time performance or cost signals. Can I integrate IO River data with my existing observability stack (Datadog, Grafana, etc.) Yes, IO River data can be exported into those platforms.

Does IO River store my CDN-processed data?

No, IO River does not store CDN-processed data. We offer a log delivery service from the CDN connected to the user’s cloud storage account.

Can I see real-time performance across all my CDNs?

Yes, data is immediately presented once it is available by the CDN.

How does IO River decide where to route traffic?

Routing decisions follow your configured priorities: performance, cost, availability, or specific CDN requests.

Does IO River require changes to my origin configuration?

No, IO River works seamlessly with any cloud or origin setup — on-prem, multi-cloud, or hybrid.

Do you respect my existing CDN commitments?

What kind of cost savings can I expect?

Customers typically see up to 30% reduction in delivery costs. Read our case studies.

Can IO River help me optimize commit usage across multiple providers?

Yes, IO River automatically steers traffic to the most cost-efficient CDN per region and helps you balance commitments. Learn more on our product page.

Is there any vendor lock-in with IO River?

No, IO River provides delivery-level independence. You can remove or add CDNs anytime without losing configuration or control.

Do the edge compute costs increase my billing amount?

IO River saves so much on delivery that edge compute costs become nearly irrelevant compared to overall optimization gains. Does IO River comply with major security standards Yes. IO River is certified for SOC 2, compliant with ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA.

How do I test IO River before going live?

IO River offers a POC defined with your account executive, focusing on your KPIs such as availability, performance, and cost. Commercial terms are finalized upfront so there are no surprises.

How does IO River’s cost-based steering work?

It combines performance and commitment data to route traffic where pricing and performance align best, ensuring you fully utilize contracts while reducing spend.

How long does integration typically take?

Integration takes just a few clicks. Choose one CDN’s configuration and IO River replicates it across your entire CDN stack automatically.

How are billing and usage tracked?

Billing is managed monthly, with transparent reports on traffic, usage, and savings.

Can IO River run in parallel with my current CDN setup?

Yes, during POC, IO River runs in parallel with your existing setup so you can test performance and reliability without disrupting live traffic.

Does IO River support active-active delivery?

Yes, IO River’s architecture is built for active-active delivery to keep traffic flowing across all providers simultaneously.

What is the latency overhead of using IO River’s orchestration layer?

Latency overhead is negligible; IO River’s control plane manages routing logic without sitting in the delivery path.

Can I integrate an existing CDN?

Yes, IO River supports integration with your current CDN providers without replacing them.

How did IO River overcome a DNS outage?

IO River manages its DNS records simultaneously in multiple DNS providers, making it resilient to the failure of a single DNS provider.

Does IO River use its own DNS?

IO River uses a Multi-DNS solution to provide smart routing for our customers while ensuring a 99.999% uptime commitment. As part of the onboarding process to IO River, the customer will be asked to update the CNAME of their domain to IO River's provided CNAME.

Will I need to double pay for my WAF service from IO River on top of the current provided by my CDN provider?

No. Once our WAF (or any of our add-on services) is used, there is no need to consume your current provider's WAF.

‍

The IO River WAF operates within your CDN provider's Edge Compute layer seamlessly and essentially acts as a substitute for it.

‍

Furthermore, the IO River WAF can easily integrate with any of your CDN providers, enabling you to receive a WAF with consistent behavior across multiple vendors.

Will using IO River increase my overall costs?

No. IO River allows optimization in cost, parallel to an improvement in the reliability and performance of the service.

Why should I use the IO River WAF?

IO River's WAF is the only WAF that can be deployed on multiple CDN providers and provide consistent behavior, without adding extra tier to your traffic.

Which APIs are supported by IO River?

IO River supports REST API, Python API, Go API and it allows you to manage the entire configuration through Terraform.

How will I be managing my CDNs?

The enormous advantage of using IO River is the ability to manage everything from a single interface.

‍

Through your IO River account, you can manage all your CDNs as if they were created as one. We ensure that your CDN behaves exactly as you have configured it

‍

Does the traffic go through the IO River?

No. IO River is not in the processing path for DNS queries or HTTP requests.

How does IO River handle the misalignment in capabilities when orchestrating two or more CDN providers?

Missing functionalities are completed using edge computing , in order to line up the functionalities to create the widest common capabilities.

How does IO River manage my CDN account?

By using your CDN API Token.

What is the integration which is required from the customer side?

Simply update the CNAME of the domain with the provided CNAME from IO River.