Configuring Global Routing Manager Country and Region Prefixes
The Global Routing Manager (GRM) intelligently routes traffic to the closest Enterprise Point of Presence (PoP). For example, if a user is in Italy, they're routed to the closest PoP in Europe, rather than to North America or Asia. If that same user travels to New York City, they're routed to the PoP in New York, unless restricted by administrative policy.
The GRM is a DNS-based load-balancing service that returns to the endpoint through the route to the closest PoP. It considers the following information:
- Geo-location of the user/endpoint
- DNS request IP address
- PoP availability
- Proxy DNS name
The precise geo-location is needed to achieve the best performance and provide localized internet content to greatly improve user experience. To achieve a good approximation of the geo-location of the user or endpoint, the IP address of the endpoint sending a DNS request to the GRM is essential. The IP address seen on the GRM is typically not the same as the client IP address of the HTTP request. Instead, it's the IP address of the DNS resolver that the endpoint uses.
Problem
If you use cloud DNS services, such as Google DNS or OpenDNS, the geo-location reported for an endpoint might not be the correct geo-location in which the endpoint is located. These cloud DNS services use outbound IP addresses that are geo-located within the United States. The same behavior applies to customers who manage their own centralized DNS infrastructure in a specific country or region. This behavior can also impact user experience while receiving webpages (content) in a foreign language.
There's no issue for customers who are using a decentralized DNS infrastructure.
Solution
When using cloud DNS services or centralized DNS infrastructure to enforce the correct geo-location, use special purpose prefixes for the country or region selection. The prefixes are hierarchically organized with continents at the top level, followed by regions, and then countries. Choose a prefix with the widest geographical area coverage because the prefix restricts dynamic load distribution and failover.
Use prefixes only when needed. Use of a prefix overrules the dynamic routing logic of GRM. When prefixes are used to enforce the selection of a specific geo-location, users might experience overall performance issues when traveling. An increase in network latency, dynamic failover, and load-balancing issues can occur.
Use a prefix for proxy settings to specify the preference for a PoP from a certain country or region:
- Country-specific prefix: If the host name for a proxy includes a prefix for an individual country, the closest or best PoP within the country is selected.
- Region-specific prefix: If the host name for a proxy includes a prefix for a larger region, the closest or best PoP within that region is selected.
Syntax:
- <prefix>.c<customerID>.wgcs.skyhigh.cloud
- <prefix>.c<customerID>.hybrid.skyhigh.cloud for WPS2 Hybrid customers using Skyhigh Client Proxy (SCP), (Hybrid transition) as configured in Migrating Web Protection Suite and Web Gateway Cloud Service to Web Protection Suite 2 and Skyhigh SWG
Remarks:
- The new domain skyhigh.cloud replaces mcafee-cloud.com, which will be retired by December 31, 2022.
- The classic WGCS domain saasprotection.com will no longer be supported, as the corresponding product will reach End of Life by December 31, 2022.
Please refer to the following examples:
- Using the country-specific region prefix for the United Kingdom for Skyhigh Security Service Edge:
uk.c12345678.wgcs.skyhigh.cloud
- Using the country-specific region prefix for the United Kingdom for WPS Hybrid customers using SCP:
uk.c12345678.hybrid.skyhigh.cloud
CAUTION: Using an IP address instead of a host name for proxy settings isn't supported.
If no PoP is available in the country or region specified in the proxy host name, the preconfigured fallback is to use the closest PoP regardless of the country or region. (It's unlikely that no PoP is available.)
To use the nearest PoP from the selected country or region for the endpoint, use the following predefined set of prefixes (subdomains):
| Continents/Regions | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Africa | africa |
| Asia | asia |
| Europe | eu |
| North America | na |
| Pacific island countries | pacific |
| Latin America | ltam |
| Asia Pacific | apac |
| NORTH AMERICA | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Canada | ca |
| North America East Coast | na-east |
| North America West Coast | na-west |
| USA East | us-east |
| USA Midwest | us-midwest |
| USA South | us-south |
| USA West | us-west |
| LATIN AMERICA | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Argentina | ar |
| Bolivia | bo |
| Brazil | br |
| Chile | cl |
| Colombia | co |
| Mexico | mx |
| Paraguay | py |
| Peru | pe |
| Uruguay | uy |
| Venezuela | ve |
| EUROPE | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Austria | at |
| Belgium | be |
| Croatia | hr |
| Czech Republic | cz |
| Denmark | dk |
| Finland | fi |
| France | fr |
| Germany | de |
| Greece | gr |
| Hungary | hu |
| Ireland | ie |
| Italy | it |
| Netherlands | nl |
| Norway | no |
| Poland | pl |
| Portugal | pt |
| Romania | ro |
| Serbia | rs |
| Slovakia | sk |
| Slovenia | si |
| Spain | es |
| Sweden | se |
| Switzerland | ch |
| Turkey | tr |
| United Kingdom | uk |
| ASIA/PACIFIC | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Asia | asia |
| Pacific island countries | pacific |
| Middle East / Israel | il |
| Australia | au |
| Australia East | au-east |
| Australia West | au-west |
| Hong Kong | hk |
| India | in |
| India North | in-north |
| India West | in-west |
| Japan | jp |
| Korea | kr |
| New Zealand | nz |
| Philippines | ph |
| Singapore | sg |
| Taiwan | tw |
| Thailand | th |
| United Arab Emirates | ae |
| AFRICA | Prefix |
|---|---|
| South Africa | za |
The dashboard at the Skyhigh Security Service Status site provides key status information for WGCS. It includes data center status, recent incidents, and scheduled maintenance.