Active/Active Datacenter Operations - USA

Retarus Transactional Email Infrastructure

Customers can send their emails directed to communication partners (outbound) through the Retarus Transactional platform. Retarus transmits the messages via the internet to the intended recipients with SPF and DKIM.

Retarus focuses on providing the highest level of security, flexibility and availability for its cloud-based messaging services. In order to guarantee high availability of these services, a second data center (Active/Active) can be used as described in chapter “Datacenter Endpoint”. For this purpose, a dedicated endpoint is provided which automatically distributes the complete traffic to the data centers  in Munich and Frankfurt, using the DNS round robin method. Retarus operates geographically separate data centers and provides customers access to those facilities.

For Retarus Transactional Email, Retarus operates two data centers at the following locations:

›       Ashburn, Virginia, USA

›       Secaucus, New Jersey, USA

The distance between these data centers is approximately 400 km (250 miles).

Access to the data centers is monitored via camera surveillance and security guards. Multiple barriers (e.g. mantraps, biometric scanners etc.) ensure access is possible for authorized personnel only. All employees of Retarus, both active and retired, are bound to the corporate privacy and non-disclosure regulations. Furthermore, the data centers and the provisioned services are operated in accordance with the SSAE 18, SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II standards.

Infrastructure Operations Restrictions

For regular email processing, both data centers provide the full feature and functionality set of the Retarus Transactional Email Services.

Usage of dedicated IP-Addresses: to use dedicated IP addresses in the Active/Active scenario described in Chapter 1, another dedicated IP address is required. This must be ordered separately according to the article catalogue

Customer configuration

To be able to benefit from the distributed infrastructure, it is a mandatory requirement for customers to configure their systems as described below.  On the Retarus side, no special configurations are required.

Datacenter Endpoint

You will need to update your destination endpoint and use the ones listed below.

Endpoint, direction from the internet to Retarus

Please pay attention to your DNS settings. Regular cleaning of the DNS cache is a prerequisite for using the Active/Active solution. Failing to clear the cache could result in addressing the wrong endpoint, thus failing to use the Active/Active construct.

Please check your firewall settings. The IP-Address from which Retarus is sending Webhook / Push Notification to your Webservice will be changed:

SPF Records

As for SPF records, you are recommended to include the Retarus default SPF record, which encompasses all IP address of Retarus reserved for outbound messaging.

During the implementation phase you already received the information regarding the default SPF record from us, so no change on your part is necessary.

In order to include this record, please follow the SPF syntax requirements. As an example, your DNS record could have a TXT record, which includes the Retarus SPF records, thus encompassing all email relays of Retarus, with the soft fail option:

v=spf1 include: _spf.general.transactional-mail-a.com ~all

DKIM

DKIM administration is carried out and provided on the Retarus website. No action is necessary on your part in the event of an outage.