Creating a new Bloomreach Engagement instance

What is a Bloomreach Engagement instance?

An “Instance” refers to a virtual instance within our cloud provider's environment (Google Cloud Platform), varying in resource reservation/dedication, performance, and security features.
Engagement offers 3 types of instances for you to choose from, see Instances for more details:

• multi tenant
• single tenant
• exclusive

On multi tenant Engagement instances, your CSM will create a dedicated account for you, set up all configurations, and grant you access to it. The location of the data centers will depend on your legal entity’s region and/or your wishes regarding where to keep your data located (we currently offer data centers in the US, UK, EU, Canada and APAC).

Single tenant and exclusive instances offer most or all of the resources dedicated, hence need to be built for you from scratch. Your CSM will need to gather all required specification details (in collaboration with you) and request the instance from our Engineering team.

Building a new single tenant or exclusive instance - what to expect?

New instances are being created by our Engineering team and hence, your CSM first needs to request an engineering time slot reservation among the slots available. Once the time slot is internally approved and allocated, expect the CSM to confirm the delivery date of your instance to you.

The location of the data centers will depend on your legal entity’s region and/or your wishes regarding where to keep your data located - please, express your request to your CSM (we currently offer data centers in the US, UK, EU, Canada and APAC).

Instance subdomains

Each Engagement instance has a set of initial App, API, and CDN domains, which all start with a shared subdomain identifier followed by a bloomreach second-level domain. For example, with the subdomain mybrand, the initial App, API and CDN domains would begin with mybrand, mybrand-api, and mybrand-cdn respectively.

Instances also support the 4th type of domains - shortener. This type of domain isn't required during instance creation.

What are subdomains used for?

• App subdomain: This is the main entry point to the Engagement application, and it hosts our UI. Each instance can have only one App subdomain.
• API subdomain: The API subdomain will be used to track data on your web or via your backend. This will be the subdomain specifying the endpoints for all the API calls/requests.
• CDN subdomain: This subdomain is used for serving content within your upcoming Engagement campaigns (in email links, survey links, consent page links, and so on) and tracking email opens and clicks.
• Shortener domain: Short custom domain which is typically used in SMS messages to reduce the total number of characters in messages containing links to the Engagement platform.

You can add extra API, CDN, and shortener domains to Engagement instances later directly via the UI. See Custom Domain Management documentation for more information.

What else is needed

CSMs also need to provide further details of the contract (e.g. contracted usage allowances and security features) and submit all required details prior to the reserved time slot to our Engineering team.

Once all required details are provided, expect the Engagement engineers to build and test the instance within the given time frame. Afterward, once the instance is delivered to the Engagement project team, expect your CSM to set up the account(s) and project(s) and invite you there. You can now start using your single tenant or exclusive Engagement instance.

In case you purchased security features like SSO, VPN, IP whitelisting, Audit log, Vulnerability scans, a more intense collaboration is needed (typically with your IT or Security team over the course of weeks or months). Expect to start working on implementing the security features once the single tenant/exclusive instance has been delivered to you.