Getting an Alibaba Cloud Account

The Alibaba Cloud has two accounts: International-Site Account and China-Site Account. In most cases the account type makes no difference when creating Alibaba Cloud resources. However, based on some internal reason, when using Terraform to manage cloud resources a few products and resources have different limitations when using different account types. We will introduce the limitations gradually to help you avoid some needless errors.

Sign Up for an Alibaba Cloud International-Site Account

To sign up for an International-Site account, visit Alibaba Cloud International-Site Website. For more account registration details, see Sign up with Alibaba Cloud

Sign Up for an Alibaba Cloud China-Site Account

The China-Site website has a different URL. To sign up for a China-Site account, visit Alibaba Cloud China-Site Website. For more account registration details, see Sign up with Alibaba Cloud

How to Distinguish Account Types

There is a simple method to check whether an Alibaba Cloud account is an International-Site or China-Site account: An account can only access its corresponding site. That is, an International-Site account can only login to the International-Site Website and a China-Site account to the China-Site Website.