Unbuckling the narrow waist of IP: Addressing Agility for Names and Web Services

At large operational scales, IP addressing stifles innovation in network- and web-oriented services. For every architectural change, and certainly when starting to design new systems, the first set of questions we are forced to ask are:

• Which block of IP addresses do or can we use?
• Do we have enough in IPv4? If not, where or how can we get them?
• How do we use IPv6 addresses, and does this affect other uses of IPv6?
• Oh, and what careful plan, checks, time, and people do we need for migration?

Having to stop and worry about IP addresses costs time, money, resources. This may sound surprising, given the visionary and resilient advent of IP, 40+ years ago. By their very design, IP addresses should be the last thing that any network has to think about. However, if the Internet has laid anything bare, it’s that small or seemingly unimportant weaknesses — often invisible or impossible to see at design time — always show up at sufficient scale.

One thing we do know: “more addresses” should never be the answer. In IPv4 that type of thinking only contributes to their scarcity, driving up further their market prices. IPv6 is absolutely necessary, Continue reading

Announcing Project Pangea: Helping Underserved Communities Expand Access to the Internet For Free

Half of the world’s population has no access to the Internet, with many more limited to poor, expensive, and unreliable connectivity. This problem persists despite large levels of public investment, private infrastructure, and effort by local organizers.

Today, Cloudflare is excited to announce Project Pangea: a piece of the puzzle to help solve this problem. We’re launching a program that provides secure, performant, reliable access to the Internet for community networks that support underserved communities, and we’re doing it for free¹ because we want to help build an Internet for everyone.

What is Cloudflare doing to help?

Project Pangea is Cloudflare’s project to help bring underserved communities secure connectivity to the Internet through Cloudflare’s global and interconnected network.

Cloudflare is offering our suite of network services — Cloudflare Network Interconnect, Magic Transit, and Magic Firewall — for free to nonprofit community networks, local networks, or other networks primarily focused on providing Internet access to local underserved or developing areas. This service would dramatically reduce the cost for communities to connect to the Internet, with industry leading security and performance functions built-in:

• Cloudflare Network Interconnect provides access to Cloudflare’s edge in 200+ cities across the globe through Continue reading