Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions: Region Hints Enable Optimal Upper‑Tier Selection
Configure region hints for anycast cloud origins to enable Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions and reduce hairpin latency.
Configure region hints for anycast cloud origins to enable Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions and reduce hairpin latency.
Summary
Cloudflare has expanded Smart Tiered Cache to support public‑cloud origins behind anycast or regional unicast IPs by allowing users to provide a cloud‑region hint.
The system detects anycast origins using a speed‑of‑light constraint on probe latencies and falls back to a multi‑tier topology when anycast is detected. With a region hint, Smart Tiered Cache maps the origin IP to the correct cloud region, selects the closest upper tier, and ensures primary and fallback tiers come from different PoPs.
The feature is available for AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud, and can be configured via the dashboard, API, or Terraform. Bulk‑editing of region hints is also supported.
This update reduces hairpin latency, improves cache hit ratios, and provides a clear path for customers with public‑cloud origins to benefit from Smart Tiered Cache’s performance advantages.
Key changes
- Adds region hint UI in dashboard for anycast origins
- Detects anycast origins using speed‑of‑light latency constraint
- Falls back to multi‑tier topology when anycast detected
- Maps origin IP to correct cloud region and selects closest upper tier
- Ensures primary and fallback tiers are from different PoPs
- Supports AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud
- Allows bulk‑edit via API or Terraform
- Improves cache hit ratios and reduces hairpin latency