We take pride in several things: our customers who consistently discover new and exciting ways to use Voluum to enhance their work, our dedicated team striving to provide the best user experience, and our technology. These three constants never waver: we attract the most exceptional individuals, employ the most intelligent minds, and consistently aim to stay at the forefront of technology.
This proactive approach pays off. While many other platforms react to technological or legal changes in the industry, we proactively update our product to ensure smooth operation for everyone, even if the changes are costly, complex, or initially imperceptible.
This is the case with the changes we’ve made to how we deliver and manage our tracking domains. After months of discussion, planning, and development, we introduced this update because it simply made sense—for our clients and for us. The new method of providing tracking domains is more scalable and more secure, representing a professional-grade approach to a professional business.
We’ll explain everything in detail.
How tracking domains were handled
The original solution was proprietary and ideal for a smaller scale. Our in-house solution was responsible for:
- Issuing certificates and serving SSL certificates
- Redirecting traffic
- Throttling traffic
- Balancing traffic
- Assigning domains
The problematic aspects included:
- Room for improvement in DDoS protection
- A lot of intricate logic to maintain
The solution worked well until we reached a certain scale, at which point it became unsustainable. We knew we needed something better.
CloudFront as a domain provider
The better solution had to be more scalable, easier to maintain, and provide an enhanced user experience. Speed, security, and reliability are crucial to our users, and these are precisely what a CloudFront-based setup can provide.
CloudFront is an Amazon service that began as a content delivery network (CDN) and has since evolved into a much more versatile solution. We’ve found a way to employ their technology to meet our tracking needs, effectively outsourcing many of the problems we had with our in-house solution to a company that specializes in handling large volumes of traffic.
Introducing CloudFront to the domain setup brings several benefits and opportunities for our customers and us.
Benefits of CloudFront migration
Switching to CloudFront-operated domains offers several benefits:
- Security: CloudFront provides exceptional protection, particularly against DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. Ambitious hackers may try to take down our infrastructure, but they won’t bring down a behemoth like Amazon.
- Speed: CloudFront relies on a Global Edge Network with 550 Edge locations distributed worldwide.
- No downtime solution: CloudFront incorporates numerous fallback mechanisms to ensure 100% uptime for its users.
For us, these changes simplify domain logic maintenance, allowing us to focus on other aspects. Moreover, the improved domain handling opens up possibilities for developing new and exciting features, such as more advanced rules or metrics.
Interested? Stay tuned!
Cutting edge technology vs outdated claims
This approach to tracking follows industry’s best standards to deliver safe, flexible and scalable architecture possible. While some self-hosted trackers try to scare you away from cloud-based trackers, their argumentation is at least two generations behind the current tech.
The linked article correctly describes what CNAME is (it is an alias of a domain) but their logic falls apart quickly. The article argues that if many customers create CNAME records to one tracking domain and one of them does something illegal and gets this domain banned, this ban will affect all customers despite using CNAME.
This is only true if all customers were using one domain. For many years, every Voluum user gets a unique dedicated domain that they are solely responsible for. So, any illegal action performed by a client affects that client only.
And now, with the introduction of CloudFront, this accusation makes even less sense, since each Voluum customer gets a unique entry to the CloudFront network.
Plus, we only aim at customers who don’t intend to do anything considered shady or downright illegal.
In short: With dedicated domains we had separate domains per client. With CloudFront, we have a separate entry point for each domain.
Like we stated at the beginning, the accusations are two steps behind.
What changes in domain setup
Dedicated domains
Instead of receiving dedicated and unique domains from Voluum, all new customers will be directed to CloudFront domain CloudFront service, which will then handle redirects to traffic servers.
Certificates
We have removed the ‘Request SSL’ button because certificates will now be handled directly by CloudFront. This ensures faster certificate issuance—in minutes, not hours. You can check the certificate status in domain settings in Voluum. Additionally, you will receive an in-panel notification once the certificate is issued.
Custom domains
The setup for custom domains will change for users with CloudFront domains enabled.
CloudFront will require the setup of two CNAME records with your custom domain provider, instead of one. You will find information about the names and values of the CNAME records in the Voluum panel.
Adapting to Industry Changes
The transition to CloudFront, while admittedly complex for both us and our customers, will enable both parties to remain competitive: Voluum will continue to be the premier performance ad tracker it is today, and our customers will be empowered to run their businesses more effectively.
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