Our CloudFlare Experience

Nick MalcolmCTO at ThisData

ThisData monitors and analyzes a company’s cloud activity,

and stops Bad Things from happening

In the time it takes to hear this talk, you could set up CloudFlare.

Overview

● Why to use CloudFlare● How to set it up● Our Results & Mistakes

Why?

● DDoS Protection● Page Speed

How do I set it up?

● Sign up, and use them as your nameserver

What if I use SSL?

● Set it up, but don’t click the orange clouds yet.● Add your SSL certificate details● Turn on the orange clouds

What gets blocked?

● Adjustable security levels to challenge visitors● White/black list by IP, Country● DDoS Protection

○ Turn on “I’m under attack!” mode to analyze ALL visitors & stop the baddies

What gets cached?

● All static assets (images, JS, CSS)● Not HTML, by default.● You can turn it on with white- or black-list rules● Or via Cache-Control headers● Can’t cache requests returning cookies

Results

● Protection from baddies!

● Response time decreased from 2.5s to 1.5s● Content size reduced by 300kb● Everything feels faster!

Mistakes

● GeoIP stopped working, as every request looks like it’s from CloudFlare

● CloudFlare blocked a partner who sends us webhooks

OOPS

Considerations:

● Breaks the 1-Bus rule○ multi-user is enterprise only, starting at $2k :O

● You need to know what to cache● Not a silver bullet for performance

Give it a goIt’s free! Or $20/m for moar features

Questions?Thanks!

@nickmalcolm https://thisdata.com