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Status on new Umbraco Cloud infrastructure, June 2021

Morten Christensen
Written by Morten Christensen

We have successfully completed the test and migration of internal and external sites to the new infrastructure. This includes umbraco.com and we’re happy to say that both performance and stability meet our expectations. In this blog post, you can learn how we are scheduling the migration and what you should be aware of:

With the migration process verified internally, we have been able to get the migration process started and the first client projects have been migrated successfully. We have been collaborating closely with partners and Cloud Powerhouses on scheduling the migration and getting each step of the process verified from a client perspective. It’s a big milestone for the project to be able to say that the first customers are now running on the new infrastructure. We’d like to thank everyone involved, it’s been a massive help to us at Umbraco HQ as well as helping provide a smooth and safe migration for everyone.

In this blog post:

Brief summary of the project 

The new infrastructure for Umbraco Cloud will provide a state-of-the-art platform as well as increased stability and allow us to expand the service and feature-set drastically in the future.

We’ve previously published 4 status blog posts announcing and detailing the new infrastructure on Umbraco Cloud. This is a follow-up to these blog posts:

Migration prioritization and scheduling

With the migration in full swing, you might be asking yourself “when will my project(s) be migrated”? It all depends whether your projects meet the requirements (listed below) and what type of project/partner status you have. We’re taking it from the top and aligning it with the subscription plans the projects are based on:

  • Priority 1: Pro/Enterprise projects and projects created by Cloud Powerhouses
  • Priority 2: Standard projects
  • Priority 3: Starter projects

If your project(s) meet the minimum requirements you can expect to be migrated to the new infrastructure in Q3, 2021. The first batch of priority 1 projects has already been scheduled for migration and will be moved starting June 16th, 2021 (direct email with info has been sent to the technical contact of these projects).

When a project is scheduled for migration you will receive a heads-up email 2 weeks prior to the migration as well as a reminder 2 days before. If you have multiple projects that are eligible you can expect them to be scheduled at the same time. Make sure to update your Technical Contacts under Project Settings to ensure the right people are informed. You can reach out to support through the Umbraco Cloud portal or raise a support ticket if the time frame does not work for you.

What about Umbraco Uno and Umbraco Heartcore?

The schedule and requirements (listed below) are only applicable for Umbraco Cloud projects. Umbraco Uno and Heartcore will of course be migrated to the new infrastructure as well. As these projects are a bit different we are running migration tracks separately. 

We expect to migrate Umbraco Uno and Heartcore projects in August 2021. There will be upgrade maintenance associated with getting the projects ready for migration. You will be notified about the maintenance and migration once the dates are finalized. No action is required from you on these projects.

New feature(s) enabled by the migration

If you are just a fraction as excited about the new Umbraco Cloud as we are, you’re VERY excited... And with good reason! Not only will your Umbraco projects be running on a more stable and performant infrastructure but it opens up for a wide range of new features and improvements that we’ve been wanting to add, and some that you’ve requested. 

One of the new features that will be available after the migration (and for projects created on the new infrastructure) is vanity URLs for GIT repositories. We’re moving away from the rather verbose GUID-based URLs that are used on Cloud currently to something resembling what you already know from i.e. Github.

https://my-project-alias.scm.s1.umbraco.io/<GUID>.git 

will become 

https://scm.umbraco.io/euwest01/my-project-alias.git

This brings a whole host of advantages both for local development, password management and adds more flexibility overall. If you’re migrating a site the old GUID-based URL will continue to work after the migration as we do not want to break any potential CI/CD setup.

Aside from this, the new infrastructure enables us to expand both hosting capabilities and add new features to Umbraco Cloud, Uno, and Heartcore. Some of the new features are already listed on our product roadmap for 2021:

  • Scheduled upgrades for Umbraco Cloud
  • Expanded CDN capabilities for Umbraco Cloud
  • Regional hosting options for Umbraco Cloud (US hosting enabled)

Right now our main focus is getting our clients on the new infrastructure so they are ready for new features. There will be more to come and we’ll start communication about these in the bi-weekly product updates and add them to the roadmap as they are planned out.

Requirements for the new Umbraco Cloud infrastructure

There are a few requirements that have to be met before a project can be moved to the new infrastructure:

Updated DNS settings - you might need to update settings
Your projects need to be updated to use the new Cloudflare DNS settings. 

All CNAME records must point to dns.umbraco.io. If you require an A-Record this must point to 104.19.191.28 or 104.19.208.28. See the Manage Hostnames documentation for detailed instructions.

You can see if you are using the new Cloudflare DNS settings or the “old” Let’s Encrypt under Project settings -> Hostnames:

Click here for full-screen

Minimum versions for Umbraco CMS - you might need to upgrade your project(s)
The new infrastructure comes with minimum requirements on what version of Umbraco CMS you can use in Umbraco Cloud. In order to be migrated your projects must run:

  • Umbraco 8.6.7 or higher for version 8 projects
  • Umbraco 7.7.8 or higher for version 7 projects.

You can find the Umbraco CMS version for each environment listed on the project page in the Umbraco Cloud Portal:

Screeenshot of a project page on Umbraco Cloud highlighting the version number of Umbraco CMS on the Live environment.

More information on upgrading can be found in the documentation article for upgrading to the latest minor or if you’re using the UaaS.cmd tool refer to the manual upgrade documentation.

Projects that do not meet the requirements, cannot be scheduled for migration to the new infrastructure. We know meeting these requirements may cause additional work for you and are thrilled to see how many have already updated their projects and DNS settings - thank you!

How will the migration affect my project(s)

The migration itself will have no impact on your Umbraco Cloud project. We’ve worked hard to make it as smooth as possible for you and your clients and are happy to say that the migration will not produce any downtime. If you want to know more about the migration process please see the previous blog post for more details.

Take a break while we migrate

We kindly ask you to hold off working on the project during the 4-hour migration window to ensure that deployments and other Umbraco Cloud services are not interrupted. 

Please do not:

  • Interact with the backoffice on Dev/Stage/Live env.
  • Update schema in the backoffice on Dev/Stage/Live env.
  • Update project settings in the Cloud portal
  • Initiate deployments between environments in the Cloud portal
  • Interact with Git repositories(sync/push/pull) 

We know this can be inconvenient but it is important and will help facilitate a smooth migration to the new infrastructure. You can resume working on the project immediately after receiving confirmation of a successful migration. The timing of when this is relevant for you and your project(s) will be sent directly to your email 2 weeks before the maintenance.

2 things you should be aware of following the migration

After the migration there will be 2 noteworthy changes:

  • New Umbraco Cloud project URL
    The project URL will change from my-project-alias.s1.umbraco.io to my-project-alias.euwest01.umbraco.io. It is only the project URL that changes. The GIT repository will still be accessible from the same URL as before and any custom domains assigned to the project will continue to work as expected. There will be an improved repository URL you can switch to, as mentioned above, but it is not required as part of the migration
  • New outgoing IP addresses (for allow lists)
    The outgoing IP addresses on Umbraco Cloud will be changed once the projects are running on the new infrastructure. This is only relevant if you are working with an allow list. In this case, please add the new outgoing IPs prior to migration.

What actions do you need to take for the migration? 

There are no additional actions required from you, aside from the aforementioned:

  • Meeting the requirements for updated DNS settings and Umbraco version
  • Potentially adding the new outgoing IP addresses to your allow list 
  • Hold off working on the project(s) while we perform the migration

We encourage you to add (or update) technical contacts for your projects (this can be done on the team Settings page for each project). If you have any questions, you’re always welcome to reach out to us using the support chat in the Umbraco Cloud portal, create a ticket if you have a support agreement or write to us at contact@umbraco.com.

Laptop with Umbraco logo icon

Let the migrations begin

As already mentioned, the first projects have been scheduled for migration and will continue to schedule new batches through Q3 2021. With the migration underway this is the last scheduled status update blog post on the migration process. We will update regularly on the progress of the migration in the bi-weekly Product Update blog posts and here you can also read about new features and roadmap updates for both Umbraco Cloud and Umbraco CMS.

Keep an eye on your inbox, the scheduling emails will arrive in the near future 🚀

Get updated on the future of Umbraco Cloud

If you want the latest and greatest updates on all things Umbraco you can join the yearly developer conference, Codegarden, this week! On Thursday, June 9th, there are a number of sessions related to Umbraco Cloud at:

  • The future of Umbraco Cloud by Morten Christensen, Team Lead for Umbraco Cloud Platform
  • The portal: What can it do for you? by Kristian Egebæk-Carlsen, Team Lead for Umbraco Cloud Features
  • Managing Code with Umbraco Cloud by Kimberly Blessing and Matthew McPherson from Dog Digital Ltd

The Cloud-related talks are bundled together on Thursday, June 10th, between 4pm and 6.30pm CEST. The talks are followed by an Unconference session with the speakers; a Q&A session where you get the chance to interact directly with Umbraco HQ and partners. You can find the full schedule and sign up for the free(!) virtual conference on codegarden.umbraco.com/ 

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