Configure DNS and CDN with Bloomreach Cloud

Introduction

Important notice: Bloomreach Cloud comes with Cloudflare CDN out of the box and is configured by Bloomreach. See the section on Configure domains.

Goal

This article is to provide guidance in case you have a special use-case that is not covered by the default solution. Follow this article for you to enable Cloudflare CDN integration and DDoS protection with the Bloomreach Cloud Platform-as-a-Service solution. This assumes that you have purchased Cloudflare CDN support separately to the Bloomreach Cloud service.
We recommend that when leveraging Bloomreach Cloud and Cloudflare you ensure to appropriately configure your DNS settings for both your production and CMS sites. 

Background

This article provides the steps to enable Cloudflare integration when deploying brXM in an HST based site implementation. For other CDN deployment configurations, with your own existing CDN or when leveraging a 3rd Party Hosting service, please contact Bloomreach professional services for further assistance.

Images

Cloudflare can cache images and other assets like CSS and Javascript files. However Cloudflare requires a url with the proper file extension at the end, for example: https://foo.org/monkey.jpg. File extensions followed by a path won't be cached! To make sure you configured the images correctly see Custom Resource Containers.

Steps to enable your Cloudflare CDN integration with Bloomreach Cloud

These steps are given as guidance only with an example site, and do not cover all use-cases that can be found in an implementation. For further support please contact Bloomreach Support. 
In this guide a domain is setup called www.example.com;

1. Create SSL certificates for the www.example.com domain:
   • Certificates can be a wildcard certificate or a subdomain certificate of www.example.com.
   • These certificates are necessary for configuration with Bloomreach Cloud.
   • Steps to prepare and share the SSL certificates are described in Provide SSL Certificates.
2. Contact Bloomreach Support to provide the certificates to map to your Bloomreach Cloud stack.
3. Bloomreach Support, once the certificates have been received, will install the above certificates on your Bloomreach Cloud stack.
4. Bloomreach Support will then generate a TXT record from Cloudflare that will need to be added to your DNS server entries. An example of the TXT record is below:

   • Record Type: TXT
     Name: cloudflare-verify.example.com
     Content: 748849389-259989658

5. After the DNS entry is verified by Cloudflare, Bloomreach Support will then provide a CNAME record that also needs to be added to your DNS server entries. An example of the CNAME record is below:

   • Record Type: CNAME
     Name: www.example.com
     Content: www.example.com.cdn.cf.net
     

6. Once the DNS entries are verified, the host properties for the sites that are running on Bloomreach Cloud, need to be configured. The configuration steps are outlined in Configure Virtual Hosts. Host files need to be configured in the brXM distribution and within the brXM Console, to align with the desired domains, www.example.com.
7.  Once the host properties are configured, the domains and custom subdomains need to be managed within the Bloomreach Cloud PaaS Mission Control User Interface. The steps to define domains can be found in Configure Domains.
8. When you are logged into Mission Control, please proceed to the Mission Control >> Domains view and map the correct environment to your desired domains (defined in the previous step).
   • Please configure both Site and CMS domains.
   • Utilising the format above;
     • www.example.com for site 
     • cms.example.com for CMS 
     • NOTE: Do not use the default URL's generated by Bloomreach Cloud for production purposes, this applies to both Site and CMS URLs.
9. We recommend performing the steps related against configuring the Host configuration, domains and MIssion Control environments-to domain mapping, for test and staging environments to verify the configuration is working as expected, prior to pushing the changes into a production environment.