Cloud Platform Release v20.6.0

Our June 2020 Cloud Platform Release contains a significant number of back-end and other unseen updates to improve the performance and resiliency of our global DNS and ADC-as-a-Service platform. Below you’ll find a summary of the most important updates included in this version:

• Route Optimization Control: We released UI controls for a new Route Optimization feature that was previously provided as a managed service for our ADC-as-a-Service. This new setting can be found in the Caching & Optimization dialog and allows you to choose between Hot Potato routing (default) or Cold Potato routing. By default, all device-destined traffic uses Hot Potato routing whereby we place traffic onto the destination network as quickly as possible. This is the default and lowest cost option, but may not provide the lowest latency or least amount of packet loss. Cold Potato routing keeps device-destined traffic on our network and routes it across our highly optimized global backbone providing high level SLAs for latency and packet loss. The average organization sees a 25% boost in application performance and throughput with Cold Potato routing implemented.
  
  
• 2FA Code: We released a small fix that corrects a trailing space that often exists when copying the 6 digit code sent for 2FA in an email. The existence of this space would cause a 2FA code mismatch, often causing confusion because it wasn’t always seen.
  
  
• Back-end Change Management: We made another significant update to how we push changes across our platform, specifically for ADC-as-a-Service. The refined update process will push changes out to our POPs faster and will also allow us to take POPs or specific devices out of service without the need for maintenance windows or change queueing. It also incorporates a vastly improved way of managing hot standby appliances at each POP to ensure they are always in-sync and ready to takeover traffic within milliseconds.
  
  
• DDoS Statistics Improvement: Last month we released a new DDoS Statistics dashboard. Based on user feedback we have further refined and improved how we display the data in the panel.
  
  
• DNS CNAME: We fixed a regression where DNS CNAME records were allowing wildcard/asterisk (*) for the host. Per RFC, DNS has never supported a wildcard CNAME record, and our accidental acceptance of these created a significant amount of confusion for customers. A records, TXT records, Web Redirects etc. continue to support wildcards as they always have.
  
  
• Notifications: Last month we re-wrote a significant portion of code that handled how email and SMS alerts were sent. In this release we completed the last part of this functionality that now creates per-company message threads. This ensures that a pileup of messages to one company will not impact/delay delivery of messages to another company. While delays did not happen often, timely alerting is critical, especially for some organizations who use alerting to drive other automations or follow-up API calls.
  
  
• Swagger: We added a number of additional API calls to our Swagger documentation including WAF Log details and Connection Monitor details.
  
  
• Device Status: We enhanced the device status “reason” value shown when hovering over port status icons. Occasionally the status reason would not display correctly. Providing accurate information here to aid in troubleshooting is critical.
  
  
• Cache Control Header: We now no longer require a cache-control header when creating or editing an existing content cache group.
  
  
• Subscriptions & Billing: We released another set of changes for the beta testers of our Subscriptions & Billing automation system.
  
  

That’s it for this update. Please send us your feedback! As we continue to evolve our solution to be the leading ADC-as-a-Service platform, we want to know what you think. Tell us the good and the bad. Let us know what features you think we should have and which ones are a waste of time, buggy, or don’t make sense. The more feedback you give us, the better our product becomes because we really do listen! Please contact us! We love hearing from our customers.