CloudFlare is a performance and security service. On average, a website on CloudFlare loads twice as fast, uses 60% less bandwidth, sees 65% fewer requests and has an additional layer of web security.
2. What is the association between One GigaByte Network and CloudFlare?
Our company is a CloudFlare Certified Partner and is offering the CloudFlare service to you through a partnership.
3. How does CloudFlare's technology work?
CloudFlare’s global network has 14 points of presence around the world. Once a website is part of the CloudFlare community, its web traffic is routed through CloudFlare’s network. CloudFlare
offers many performance and security services including CDN (content delivery network), web content optimization and a web security layer.
- Performance service: CloudFlare’s network stores a copy of static files closer to web visitors, which means they are delivered more quickly than before. This is similar to a CDN. CloudFlare caches resources such as CSS, JavaScript and images. CloudFlare’s technology automatically decides which resources to cache based on file extension names so there is zero configuration. CloudFlare also does compression for every request.
- Security service: CloudFlare’s network blocks threats and limits abusive bots before they hit the server, which means less wasted bandwidth and server resources. CloudFlare’s network gets continually smarter with each new website.
CloudFlare's network currently has the following 23 locations where it does caching and traffic
filtering:
- US/Canada – 9 locations (Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, San Jose, Washington DC, Atlanta, Seattle, Newark, Toranto)
- Europe – 8 locations (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Stockholm, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna)
- Asia – 4 locations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul)
- Australia - 1 location (Sydney)
5. What types of websites can use CloudFlare?
Almost all websites can use CloudFlare. CloudFlare works for both static and dynamic websites. CloudFlare is not suitable for websites that stream video or audio directly from their origin
server. If a website uses YouTube or Vimeo then it is compatible with CloudFlare. Examples of websites that greatly benefit from CloudFlare include:
- Popular websites that get heavy visitor traffic
- E-commerce or business sites
- Sites with diverse international traffic
- Sites under DDoS attack
- Sites with heavy server load
- Sites with past security breaches
Yes, the site can use CloudFlare, however there is an extra step. The customer has to upgrade to CloudFlare’s paid service, CloudFlare Pro, which costs $20/month. CloudFlare will then be SSL compatible. You can learn more about CloudFlare Pro at www.cloudflare.com/plans.
7. Are there domains that shouldn't be enabled with CloudFlare?
An orange cloud means that the web traffic will pass through the CloudFlare system making the site Faster, Safer and Smarter. A gray cloud means that the traffic will not pass through the CloudFlare system.
Only CNAME records have the option to be powered by CloudFlare (i.e. orange cloud). However, not all CNAME records are appropriate to pass through the CloudFlare system. To decide which records pass through the CloudFlare network, you need to understand what type of content appears on that subdomain. CloudFlare can be enabled for any subdomain that gets web traffic. CloudFlare should not enabled for subdomains that handle non-web traffic, such as mail, ftp, and ssh or they should be marked by a gray cloud.
Cloudflare will proxy these ports:
• 80 • 2053 • 2086 • 2096 • 8880
• 443 • 2082 • 2087 • 8080
• 2052 • 2083 • 2095 • 8443
8. Can I enable CloudFlare on a wildcard (*) subdomain?
No, for security reasons, CloudFlare does not proxy traffic to a wildcard subdomain. However, by explicitly listing the subdomain as a CNAME in the DNS records, CloudFlare can be enabled.
9. Can I enable CloudFlare on my root domain (i.e. mywebsite.com) that is an A record?
Technically no, CloudFlare will only work on CNAME entries and since the root domain is an A record, customers wouldn't be able to activate CloudFlare.
10. If I activated CloudFlare from my control panel, do we also get an account on cloudflare.com?
Yes. Once CloudFlare is activated through a Certified Partner, the customer also gets an account on www.cloudflare.com. The basic statistics and settings are shown in your control panel. To see more statistics, threat control panel and all the CloudFlare settings, you should log in to their www.cloudflare.com account.
Please use the ‘Forgot password’ link set to you the first time you try to log in.
