Migration and testing instructions
Zephr is changing edge provider from Cloudfront to Cloudflare. Some customers will need to make configuration changes in order to migrate their integrations to the new edge network. This document is intended for a technical audience and describes the changes required and how to test them.
Integration type: API or in-browser rules
If your integration only interacts with Zephr via API (including the /zephr/feature-decisions API), this is effectively a networking change and so no customer testing is needed. You will be able to validate that the change has been applied by checking the DNS entries for the zephr endpoints you use.
Integration type: CDN
Ensure origin access
If you are already using a secret header to restrict access to your origin, that will continue working after this change. If you are using IP whitelisting, we recommend switching to using a secret header. If you are unable to switch, you will need to update your IP whitelists to include Cloudflare's IP ranges. These can be found here: https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/ips/
Perform domain validation
If your website's domain records are pointing directly to Zephr (that is, not via another CDN layer or middleware), Cloudflare will need to validate your domain ownership in order to be able to issue a valid certificate for HTTPS. We will attempt to do this for you using HTTP DCV validation, failing that you can speed up the process by adding TXT records in your DNS configuration. You can see the status of validation, and what TXT records to add, in the Zephr console.
Host Header rewrite
If you have configured Zephr to override the host header on your origin requests, some extra validation steps will be needed to enable Cloudflare to securely communicate with your origin. Your CSE will arrange a call with the Zephr CloudOps team to organise this.
Final step: cut over
Once you have finished validating and have confidence, the final step is to switch production traffic over to the new infrastructure.
DNS change
If your website's domain is pointed to Zephr via a CNAME record, you can complete the migration by changing the domain's CNAME target to be one of the *.zephrcf.com convenience domains listed under your Site in the Zephr Console. We recommend pre-warming the TTL to 30s on the existing value, making this change during a quiet period, and being prepared to switch back in the event of unexpected failure.
If you do not have ready access to your DNS configuration, the Zephr Cloudops can perform a DNS change on our end so the CNAME target itself points to the new infrastructure. This should be seen as a last resort, as you will not be able to revert this yourself.
Endpoint change
If your website's domain is terminated by another CDN provider, or there is some other middleware handling web content between Zephr and your customer web browser, you can complete the migration by updating the CDN or middleware origin to use one of the *.zephrcf.com convenience domains listed under your Site in the Zephr Console.
If you do not have ready access to your CDN provider or middleware routing configuration, the Zephr Cloudops can perform a DNS change on our end so the origin domain points to the new infrastructure. This should be seen as a last resort as you will not be able to revert this yourself.
Testing
As the new infrastructure involves changes to the code that retrieves and transforms web content, we recommend you validate that your website still functions as expected prior to switching your DNS entries or integration target domain.
Testing method 1: Test domain
This simplest way to do this is to use a convenience domain- for each of your sites you'll see a new domain ending in *.zephrcf.com in the domains list.
Testing Method 2: Host file override
If this doesn't work for you due to how your origin is configured, another approach is to manually override your website's domain on the computer you are testing from by setting an entry in your hosts file. Instructions for how to do this depend on your operating system. The entry should map your domain to either 172.66.0.234 or 162.159.140.236. Remember to remove the entry once you're done testing. Note, this will require domain ownership to be validated in Cloudflare (see above).
Testing Method 3: Virtual environment
If you are unable to edit your hosts file, please contact support to request a virtual desktop environment with the hosts file preconfigured for your domain(s).
What to test
We recommend that you test any website functionality that relies on Zephr feature rules, JSON rules, or Zephr SSO.
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Sean Gray
Zuora
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