The technology that ensures website memory, speed and security is called cloud computing. There are various cloud computing technologies and organizations around the world. Cloudflare is one of these. It acts like an invisible shield through a network of servers spread across the globe, preventing cyber attacks and reducing web page loading times.
In today’s digital age, a website is the online identity of an organization. But keeping this contact fast and secure is a big challenge. This is where the American web infrastructure and security company Cloudflare has emerged as a savior. It is known as a content delivery network (CDN), cloud security platform and domain name server (DNS) provider.
What is Cloudflare?
Cloudflare is a reverse proxy service. In simple terms, it acts as an intermediary between the website and the visitors. When an Internet user wants to access a website, their request does not go directly to the origin server but first reaches CloudFlare’s globally spread server network. CloudFlare verifies the request and grants access to the origin server.
Cloudflare’s mission is to make the Internet faster, safer, and more reliable.
How does it work?
CloudFlare’s way of working rests on two main pillars: speed optimization and security.
Cloudflare operates a massive Content Delivery Network (CDN). This network consists of edge servers or data centers installed in more than 300 cities around the world. Next comes caching. CloudFlare stores website static files (eg images, CSS files, JavaScript) on its local edge servers.
When a visitor wants to enter the website, the request is served from the edge server that is geographically closest to him instead of the root server. This reduces the distance to the main server, thus reducing the time required for data exchange. As a result, the website loads in the blink of an eye.
CloudFlare performs another important function of ensuring security as a reverse proxy. As a reverse proxy, CloudFlare hides the origin server directly from the Internet.
In addition, it protects the website from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. CloudFlare’s network intercepts and filters malicious traffic before it reaches the origin server. CloudFlare uses a web application firewall, which protects against common web vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS).
It protects the website from malicious bots and additional crawler visits, which reduces the stress on the server. Cloudflare provides free SSL/TLS encryption certificates, which keep data transmission between visitors and websites secure and encrypted.
What is the scope of Cloudflare?
The breadth of CloudFlare’s network and the diversity of its services make it one of the largest infrastructures on the Internet.
According to W3Techs, a popular technology usage statistics company, CloudFlare currently supports more than 19% to 25% of websites on the Internet with their web servers or security services.
In terms of top websites, it serves more than 32% or close to one-third of the top 1 million websites worldwide.
However, Cloudflare dominates the Content Delivery Network or CDN market. Over 79% to 80% of websites that use a CDN or reverse proxy use CloudFlare.
In terms of numbers of active websites, Cloudflare runs more than 7.5 million to 24 million active websites worldwide.
Cloudflare operates a massive global network consisting of data centers in over 300 cities worldwide. It is a huge part of the Internet’s traffic, receiving an average of 450 million written HTTP requests per second.
Not only CDN and security, CloudFlare also offers numerous services, such as providing fast and confidential domain name server DNS service (1.1.1.1). As an edge computing platform, developers can build and deploy applications directly on edge servers. Modern security solutions for corporate networks and applications such as Zero Trust Security.
Millions of websites, blogs and online services around the world rely on CloudFlare for their speed and security. From small blogs to large e-commerce sites and various government organizations also use its services.
In essence, CloudFlare serves as the backbone of the speed, security and reliability of the modern Internet. Its motto is to make the internet user experience faster and safer.
