How to renew and upgrade subscription WAF 2.0 instances - Web Application Firewall

After your Web Application Firewall (WAF) instance expires, WAF stops providing services. To ensure service continuity, you must enable auto-renewal or renew your instance before your instance expires. If your instance cannot meet your business requirements, you can upgrade your instance. You can renew and upgrade only subscription WAF instances. This topic describes how to renew a subscription WAF instance.

Renewal

Instance expiration

Alibaba Cloud notifies you of topping up your Alibaba Cloud account seven days before your WAF instance expires by text message or email.
After your instance expires, your instance enters a seven-day grace period. During the grace period, your instance is locked and cannot be accessed. However, the configurations of your instance are retained during the grace period. If you manually renew your instance within the grace period, you can continue using your instance.
If you do not renew your instance within the grace period, your instance is released and can no longer protect your websites.
Warning
After your WAF instance is released, the websites that are protected by your instance cannot be accessed unless you modify the Domain Name System (DNS) records of the websites to point to the origin server.
- Before your WAF instance is released, make sure that the DNS records of the websites that are protected by your instance point to the origin server. For more information about how to modify a DNS record, see Modify a DNS record.
- After your WAF instance is released, all configurations of the websites that are protected by your instance are deleted. If a request is still redirected to your WAF instance, the request cannot be forwarded to the origin server and the access fails.

Instance renewal

Log on to the WAF console. In the top navigation bar, select the resource group and the region in which the WAF instance is deployed. The region can be Chinese Mainland or Outside Chinese Mainland.
Renew your WAF instance.
- Manual renewal
  1. In the upper-right corner of the Overview page, click Renew.
  2. On the Web Application Firewall | Renew page, specify a validity period, read and select Terms of Service, and then click Buy Now to complete the payment.
    After you complete the payment, you can view the expiration time of your WAF instance in the upper-right corner of the Overview page.
- Auto-renewal
  1. In the upper-right corner of the Overview page, click Auto-renewal.
  2. On the Manual tab of the Renewal page, find the WAF instance for which you want to enable auto-renewal and click Enable Auto Renewal in the Actions column.
  3. In the Enable Auto Renewal dialog box, select an auto-renewal period and click Auto Renew.
    After you enable auto-renewal for your WAF instance, you can view or modify the renewal information on the Auto tab of the Renewal page. Before your WAF instance expires, Alibaba Cloud notifies you that the renewal fee is automatically deducted from your account balance and generates a renewal order. You do not need to manually renew your WAF instance.
    Note
    After you enable auto-renewal, Alibaba Cloud automatically deducts the renewal fee from your account balance nine days before your WAF instance expires. Make sure that your Alibaba Cloud account has sufficient balance. If you receive a notification for an auto-renewal failure, you must manually renew your WAF instance before the instance expires. Then, you can enable auto-renewal again.
    Auto-renewal supports coupons. Alibaba Cloud automatically uses eligible coupons to help you obtain the lowest price available.
    Auto-renewal takes effect the next day after it is enabled.