CloudFlare

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 2:19 pm Post subject: CloudFlare

, I recently came across the recently-launched CloudFlare

. I thought I'd post here to let others know about it, and to see what NetHosted thought of it in general.

Briefly put, a web master changes their domain's authoritative name servers to CloudFlare's, and then the service selectively caches static content (e.g. images and CSS) and serves it via it's Content Delivery Network. HTML is not cached, meaning changes in documents themselves are still instantly served. The nearest data centre to the UK is in Amsterdam, but (according to them) it's fast from there. They also add a layer of security measures.

I've signed up and will probably test it out on one site which is hosted here at NetHosted to see what effect it has on performance and bandwidth usage.

There's a page for web hosts

which might want to consider becoming partners.

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 7017

This is interesting. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Please do let us know how you get along with this.

Thanks,

Andrew

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:37 pm Post subject:

I was reading on a web hosting forum, that Cloudflare are adding more DC, sometime in May I think.

They will have locations in:

Hong Kong
Singapore
Tokyo
Frankfurt
London
Paris
Amsterdam
Miami
Ashburn
New York
Chicago
Dallas
Los Angeles
San Jose

Just had a look at there Twitter page, and it does look like they have some sort of an issues nearly every week. I don't know if that is normal for a CDN, or if it because they are free.

David, how are you finding them?

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 3:18 pm Post subject:

I've found them to be fine. I can't comment on speed properly yet as I'd need to test more, but they certainly helped take away some bandwidth for photo galleries for example.

I've never noticed anything being down. I'm also yet to fully explore the security features.

I'd suggest giving them a try with a site with which you can afford to experiment to see how the DNS changes are made, etc.

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 3:27 pm Post subject:

I signed up yestarday, on a test domain to see the trace route mainly. But I found a problem, with my Virgin Media cable connection going to the US.

For some reason Virgin Media UK customers, connect to the US, and not NL server, they going to see what they can do.

I did do some other trace routes from around the world and it seems to be working as it should.

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