If your Web Application Firewall (WAF) instance expires, the instance no longer provides services. To prevent this situation, you must enable auto-renewal or manually 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 and upgrade a subscription WAF instance.

Renewal

Service expiration

  • Alibaba Cloud notifies you of topping up your Alibaba Cloud account seven days before your instance expires by text message or email.
  • After your instance expires, your instance enters a grace period that lasts for seven days. 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, your instance is unlocked and can continue to protect your websites.
  • If you do not renew your instance within the grace period, your instance is released and can no longer protect your websites.
    Warning After a WAF instance is released, a website that was protected by the instance cannot be accessed unless you change the DNS record of the website to point to the origin server.

Renew a WAF instance

  1. Log on to the WAF console. In the top navigation bar, select the resource group and the region to which your WAF instance belongs. The region can be Chinese Mainland or Outside Chinese Mainland.
  2. Renew your WAF instance.

    • Manually renew the WAF instance

      1. In the upper-right corner of the Overview page, click Renew.
      2. In the Renew panel, specify a subscription duration, read and select Web Application Firewall Terms of Service, and then click Buy Now to complete the payment.

        After you complete the payment, you can view the expiration time of the WAF instance in the upper-right corner of the Overview page.

    • Enable auto-renewal for the WAF instance

      1. In the upper-right corner of the Overview page, click Auto-Renew.
      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 the WAF instance, you can view or modify the renewal information on the Auto tab. Before the WAF instance expires, Alibaba Cloud notifies you that the renewal fee is automatically deducted and generates a renewal order. You do not need to manually renew the WAF instance.

        Note
        • After auto-renewal is enabled, Alibaba Cloud automatically deducts the renewal fee from your account balance nine days before the WAF instance expires. Make sure that your account balance is sufficient. If you are notified of an auto-renewal failure, you must manually renew the WAF instance before the instance expires. Then, you can enable auto-renewal again.
        • Auto-renewal supports coupons. Alibaba Cloud automatically applies eligible coupons to help you obtain the lowest price available.
        • Auto-renewal takes effect the day after it is enabled.

Upgrade

If your WAF instance cannot meet your business requirements, you can upgrade the instance to a higher edition before it expires. A higher edition provides more enhanced protection. For more information about the features supported by WAF instances of each edition, see WAF deployment plans and editions.

  1. Log on to the WAF console. In the top navigation bar, select the resource group and the region to which your WAF instance belongs. The region can be Chinese Mainland or Outside Chinese Mainland.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the Overview tab, click Upgrade.
  3. On the Upgrade/Downgrade page, select the required configurations, read and select Web Application Firewall Terms of Service, and then click Buy Now to complete the payment.