MarcomCentral Datacenter Migration: June 4th, 2022

Start Migration:
Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Pacific Time Zone: 10:00PDT
Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Eastern Time Zone: 13:00EDT

Complete Migration:
Sunday, June 5, 2022 | Pacific Time Zone: 18:00PDT
Sunday, June 5, 2022 | Eastern Time Zone: 21:00EDT

On June 4th, 2022, we will be migrating our primary data center to the Switch Tier 4 facility in Las Vegas to improve the uptime and performance of MarcomPortal’s platform.

It will require that we redirect all traffic to our new platform which will cause a planned outage during the migration window affecting access to the MarcomPortal platform and FusionPro license activation systems.

ACTION MAY BE REQUIRED BY YOUR ORGANIZATION:

Client Domain, DNS, Firewall, SPF settings may need to be updated:

As part of the migration to Switch, we’re simplifying and future-proofing the way we allow custom domains and email spoofing to be directed to our servers.

If any of these scenarios apply to your organization, you need to take action.

If your organization is:

1. Using internal firewall rules to allow traffic to MarcomCentral servers
2. Using the IP address to whitelist “spoofed” emails (emails coming from MarcomCentral which appear to be coming from your company’s domain) to allow them through internal email filters
3. Using custom domain redirects to MarcomCentral servers (ex: CompanyShop.com redirects to MarcomCentral IP address)
4. Using a custom domain name and iFrame to display MarcomCentral in the browser with a custom domain name in the address bar.

1- Firewall Rules

Update client-side Firewall Settings if Client is Whitelisting MarcomCentral’s IP range – you can do this now

If your organization has setup firewall rules to allow access to the current MarcomCentral Scale Matrix datacenter, you will need to add the new Switch datacenter IP addresses.

For security reasons, many organizations prevent traffic coming from any non-approved IP address. Your organization may have whitelisted our IP addresses to allow access to our software from within your firewall.

ACTION: Leave the Scale Matrix IP addresses in place until after the conclusion of the datacenter move. Add access to the Switch IP addresses before the datacenter move.

Leave as is:
Current: Scale Matrix IPs:
CIDR Format: 162.213.47.0/24
Netrange Format (Range of IP addresses): 162.213.47.1-254

New – please add these to firewall rules:
Switch IPs (New Datacenter):
Range 1 –
CIDR Format: 216.115.93.64/26
Netrange Format (Range of IP addresses): 216.115.93.65-126

Range 2 –
CIDR Format: 216.115.93.0/29
Netrange Format (Range of IP addresses): 216.115.93.1-6

2- Email Spoofing and Whitelisted Email Sending/Receiving

Update SPF record to continue receiving “spoofed” emails from the MarcomCentral system – you can do this now.

Within the MarcomPortal admin tool, your organization may have created a “sender email” for system email notifications. This allows MarcomCentral to send emails that look like they are coming from your organization at yourcompany.com – versus being sent from MarcomCentral. This is called “spoofing.”

For some clients, their IT team blocks spoofed emails because they can be used for phishing. Therefore, these clients may have whitelisted Marcom’s IP address to allow the “spoofed” emails through their corporate email filters.

ACTION: Instead of using MarcomCentral’s IP address to allow the “spoofed” emails, your organization’s IT team will use SPF. It is _spf.app.pti.com

Marcom’s IP address will be different once we’ve migrated to Switch, the new datacenter. If your organization continues to whitelist the old IP address, you will no longer receive spoofed emails.

If you are experiencing issues with emails after applying the recommended changes above to your environment, the following are some troubleshooting tips that can be considered.

• Check spam/junk folders
• Add MarcomCentral to Safe Senders
• Add MarcomCentral to whitelist in spam filters.

Whitelisting in Barracuda.
https://support.knowbe4.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000126387-Whitelisting-in-Barracuda

Whitelisting in O365
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/configure-the-connection-filter-policy?view=o365-worldwide

There are too many different providers to list, yet the basic concept is to add MarcomCentral’s sender IP to any whitelist, or filter exemption list your anti-spam provider may have. Check your junk mail/spam folder to see if the emails from MarcomCentral are being caught. If they are being caught by an email client, add MarcomCentral to safe senders or bypass lists of said email client.

Our sending IP has little or no positive sender reputation. Sometimes no reputation is the same as a bad reputation in the spam filtering world. As the sent email tally grows and the percentage of accepted emails grows, the reputation will improve and there will be less need to adjust spam settings.

3- Custom Domain Redirects to MarcomCentral Servers:

Update domain name redirects if they are pointing to Marcom’s IP addresses – you can do this now

Your organization may have custom redirects from your website (yourcompany.com/brandportal) or domain name (companybrandportal.com) that redirect your users to your MarcomCentral portal. If those redirects are pointing to our IP address, you need to establish a DNS redirect to your portal URL instead.

Classic PortalACTION:Establish the DNS redirect to https://marcomcentral.app.pti.com/{accountname}/{portalname}versus the MarcomCentral IP address. This DNS setting will future proof your redirect going forward.

PortalACTION:Establish the DNS redirect to https://portal.assets.site/{portalid}versus the MarcomCentral IP address. This DNS setting will future proof your redirect going forward.

You can find your portal URL from within the Admin Tool (Portal Info > Portal Information)

4- Custom Domain Name Redirects and iFrames

Update custom domain name redirects if they are pointing to Marcom’s IP addresses and using iFrames – you can do this now

Note: MarcomCentral does not recommend using iFrames. Many web browsers have deemed iFrames as a security risk because of their potential for illicit use. MarcomCentral recommends using a DNS redirect instead – as outlined in #3 above.

If your organization is using a custom domain name (mycompanybrand.com) to redirect to a page hosting an iFrame linked to MarcomCentral’s IP address, you will need to redirect to your MarcomCentral portal URL instead.

The reason some clients use iFrames and a custom domain is to have a custom URL of their choice in the address bar for the entire duration of the portal user’s session. For example, a user goes to MyCompanyBrand.com and it appears in the address bar the entire time the user is navigating around the portal. This is done through iframing the portal at MyCompanyBrand.com

ACTION: If your organization decides to continue using iFraming, the iFrame will need a DNS redirect to https://marcomcentral.app.pti.com/{accountname}/{portalname} versus the MarcomCentral IP address. You can find your portal URL from within the Admin Tool (Portal Info > Portal Information)

If you have questions about any of the above
migration actions, please contact