Cloudflare has very quickly become a household name for many business and users around the world protecting and providing security services to a plethora of companies big and small. We though today that we could take a brief look at Cloudflare, what it is and how it can help protect you.
Overview
Cloudflare can trace it's origins back to the year 2010. Founded in California by a couple of security developers whose previous collaborations would form the basis of Cloudflares core product offering. Fast forward to today in 2024, Cloudflare boasts one of the largest networks on the planet growing by ten of thousands of customers every single day serving millions of HTTP requests every second.
Features
Defend (DDOS) -
Cloudflare protects websites, applications, and entire networks from DDoS attacks, blocking over 57 billion assaults per day.
Load balancing CDN -
Intelligent load balancing mechanisms deployed across 200 data centers worldwide aim to distribute requests to ensure consistent load times.
Static content caching -
Content is cached strategically on edge servers closest to the source of your users to ensure quick response times.
Geo based routing -
Thanks to there large distributed network, your users will be served content from the regions they are in, ensuring consistent fast performance world wide.
Mobile optimised loading -
Cloudflare offer a unique service that detects a users device type from its browser fingerprint and uses this to optimise assets on the fly with its automated lazy loaded images and other features.
AI Threat Intelligence -
Cloudflare also boast a range of tools powered by AI to detect threats in real time adjusting its services to protect its users on the fly.
Network in China -
Cloudflare is the only provider in the world that has services in every country including China by working closely with Chinese vendors to serve it's chinese user base.
Why use it?
Here are just a handful of reasons to consider using Cloudflares service at the front of your website:
- Free DNS
- Huge edge content delivery network
- Free SSL
- Free DDoS protection
- Smart firewall
- Free content caching
- DNS load balancing from $5/m
- No DNS query limits on free accounts
Advantages
There are a number of advantages to deploying Cloudflares service Including its easy to setup nature, making it a favourite of IT admins, its large 200 data centre global network, advanced analytics and the ability to serve a fully cached version of your website to users even if the source server is offline, ensuring high availability.
Disadvantages
Cloudflare only uses managed DNS, which may not be suitable for bigger advanced organisations and there is only one option for SSL certificates.
Conclusion
Hopefully this has given a bit of insight as to the power of a service like Cloudflare, why not check it out and see how it can help you? It's simple to get started, just head over to there site and get registered.
Want more info? Why not get in touch with us today and let's see how we can help with your website needs.
Bye for now :)