What is the Cloud Option on VergeCloud and How to Configure It for Your Website

DNS Cloud Option

Overview

After migrating your website to VergeCloud and completing the necessary DNS configurations, you can view and manage DNS Records for your domain and its subdomains directly from the DNS Records section within the VergeCloud dashboard. This area gives you complete visibility into how traffic is routed and provides control over performance and security settings, including the Cloud Option.

What Is the Cloud Option?

The Cloud Option is a powerful CDN‐routing feature that allows you to enhance your website’s performance, reliability, and security. When this option is enabled, all traffic for that domain or subdomain is routed through VergeCloud’s global CDN edge network. This ensures that your content is delivered from the server geographically closest to each visitor, resulting in faster load times and better user experience.
When the Cloud Option is disabled, traffic bypasses the CDN entirely and travels directly to your origin server. While this may be appropriate for certain non-HTTP services, it prevents you from benefiting from any CDN optimization, caching, or security features.

 

Benefits of Enabling the Cloud Option

Enabling the Cloud Option unlocks multiple CDN capabilities that boost both performance and protection:
1. Advanced Caching
Static assets such as images, CSS, JavaScript, and media files can be cached at VergeCloud’s edge servers. This reduces round trips to the origin server and minimizes latency. Users receive content almost instantly, even during traffic spikes.
2. Web Acceleration
Traffic routed through the CDN benefits from optimized network paths, compression, and intelligent routing algorithms. This results in improved site responsiveness, faster page loads, and reduced server load.
3. Security Layer Activation
The Cloud Option automatically turns on important security mechanisms such as:
Bot mitigation features
IP reputation filtering
These protections help shield your origin from malicious traffic and reduce the chances of service disruptions.
Enabling the Cloud Option grants access to detailed traffic logs, request patterns, cache analytics, and security event data. This helps you monitor performance and detect anomalies in real time.

Technical Considerations

To ensure smooth operation, keep the following technical points in mind:
  1. VergeCloud’s CDN supports HTTP and HTTPS traffic only, specifically on ports 80 and 443.
  2. When traffic flows through the CDN, there is no enforced limit on upload volume, allowing large file transfers to proceed normally.
  3. However:
    HTTP request headers must not exceed 16 KB.
    The maximum allowed interval between consecutive write operations is 180 seconds.
  4. If WAF is enabled, the maximum allowed HTTP request body size is 524,288 bytes (512 KB).
  5. VergeCloud allows these ports for end-user connections: 80, 8080, 8880, 2052, 2082, 2086, 2095, 443, 2053, 2083, 2087, 2096, 8443
  6. VergeCloud can connect to your origin using any HTTP/HTTPS port.

The Cloud Option is intended for web traffic only. Enabling it on DNS records associated with non-HTTP services may cause service failures, because protocols like email, FTP, SSH, or game servers are not compatible with CDN routing.

Services That Should Not Have Cloud Enabled

Here is the complete list of record names that should remain cloud OFF:
autodiscover, calendar, chat, cPanel, cvs, e, email, exchange, ftp, game, gameserver, git, google, imap, irc, local, localhost, mail, mobilemail, mx, panel, pda, pop, repo, secure, sftp, sites, smtp, ssh, ssl, stream, streaming, svn, vid, video, vids, vpn, webmail, webstats
If any of these are accidentally routed through the CDN, the service may become inaccessible or behave unpredictably.
To turn off the Cloud Option, simply navigate to DNS Records, locate the entry, and click the cloud icon to toggle it off.

Testing Cloud Option Activation

After enabling the Cloud Option for your domain, you can verify that it is active by running a simple DNS lookup using the dig command:

  1. dig A example.com

Sample Test Output

  1. ; <<>> DiG 9.16.1-Ubuntu <<>> A example.com
    ;; global options: +cmd
    ;; Got answer:
    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 67890
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;example.com.                   IN      A

    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    example.com.            3600    IN      A       203.0.113.20

    ;; Query time: 35 msec
    ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
    ;; WHEN: Thu Sep 26 14:45:12 UTC 2024
    ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 68

API Reference

Update the Cloud setting for a specific DNS record in your VergeCloud-managed domain. Use this endpoint to toggle CDN and security features on or off for individual DNS records https://api.vergecloud.com/docs#tag/dns/put/v1dnsdomainrecordsidcloud

Important Considerations When Testing

Ensure the A Record points to a VergeCloud CDN IP, not your origin IP, once the cloud is active.
  1. DNS propagation can take anywhere from a few minutes to up to 48 hours globally.
  2. Testing too early may show outdated results.

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