6 ms·

Argo from Cloudflare – featuring Smart Routing and Tiered Cache

62 points by cemerick 9y ago

hashkb 9y ago
Sounds very similar to how Fastly works.
- foobarbazetc 9y ago
  The concept of symmetrical DSA is not new. This is an accessible implementation that's more like Akamai SurePath as Fastly doesn't (AFAIK) do route optimization or run premium backbone between POPs.
Edmond 9y ago
Akamai has had SureRoute and Tiered distribution for probably over a decade. It would be nice if the HN front page can stop serving as Ad space for CloudFlare.
- user5994461 9y ago
  And CloudFlare now does the same... but 1000 times more affordable.
  - acdha 9y ago
    That very much depends on what you need and your negotiating prowess. CloudFlare has public pricing for entry-level plans but once you're out of that range it's a traditional sales negotiation with both companies.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      From actually talking to CF, they're still at least a magnitude less expensive than Akamai.
      - acdha 9y ago
        I have no doubt that was your experience. I also know that it's a good idea to consider whether your personal experience is in fact universally applicable before “actually”-ing someone making that assertion.
        user5994461 9y ago
        It is universally applicable. Their pricing is order(s) of magnitude more affordable. It's not a secret. Everyone who has to dealt with both of them knows that.
        acdha 9y ago
        Please read the thread before replying: I'm not saying that wasn't true for you, only that it wasn't for me – hence my encouragement to shop around if this is a big deal for you. No number of comments from random people on the internet is going to outweigh actual price quotes.
        foobarbazetc 9y ago
        You are 100% wrong.
      - foobarbazetc 9y ago
        Nope. Akamai DSA for us was 50% the cost of CloudFlare Enterprise. You just need to be good at negotiating.
        manigandham 9y ago
        Doesn't every major CDN do DSA-like stuff now? What does it offer you that Cloudflare's basic plans don't?
        foobarbazetc 9y ago
        Nothing. We now use CloudFlare on the $200/month plan. :) My point is more CloudFlare Enterprise vs Akamai. The prices quoted to us for Enterprise were ridiculous. Sometimes when a vendor starts off with prices not even in the ballpark of Akamai there's no point even engaging. For what it's worth, while CF is reasonable for DSA (haven't enabled Argo yet, so...) their performance is erratic. Akamai/EdgeCast are more predictable because the Argo-like component is built in. Not to mention CF cached content serving speeds aren't great. And they don't cache large files on non-Enterprise. I think something like CF $200 plan plus Argo plus their load balancing product is very powerful and hard to beat. But you still need something to run your downloads from (you can get EdgeCast on a non commit month to month from Speedyrails for that or whatever -- CloudFront also a shitty option.) Also, I hate dealing with sales people in general and I find CF sales people more irritating than usual. Akamai sales also suck. The nicest sales people I've ever dealt with were EdgeCast pre Verizon acquisition. Also Cotendo before Akamai.
- tyingq 9y ago
  Not specific to HN, but if Akamai wants more buzz and discussion, all they need to do is introduce some small/hobby level plans with up-front pricing and no interaction with salespeople.
  - Edmond 9y ago
    That's a fair point...though the bar for Akamai is a lot higher than that of CF as it relates to their customer base...let's just say when your clients include some of the most renowned companies in the world, top US government agencies, the US military...the people you let on your platform becomes a matter of concern.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      I see what you mean, but AWS has a similar client list, probably higher risks in that area than a CDN, and manages just fine.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      The real barrier is the pricing. Don't bother talking to Akamai if you don't have one million dollar. Big companies, government and military are the only ones which can afford it. They'd use a registration form too, if there were one.
r1ch 9y ago
The pricing model on this makes no sense. Argo claims to optimize the route between Cloudflare and the origin, which is only used during cache misses, yet they charge $0.10/gb for all traffic from Cloudflare to visitors. Considering most sites will be aiming for a high cache hit rate, I don't see this being very attractive unless your user base is constantly logged in and hitting your backend.
- Edmond 9y ago
  Not all content can be cached,that's where optimal routing to origin provides the most benefit...for instance if you're serving pages with PII after the user logs in, you can't cache that on a CDN (you can do browser based private caching though).
- ec109685 9y ago
  The pricing is based on the value they perceive customers will be receiving and use bandwidth as a proxy for usage.
tav 9y ago
Any chance the Smart Routing would be available as a TCP/UDP proxy service? It would be great to take advantage of Cloudflare's network without having to hand over your SSL keys.
- deno 9y ago
  > Because of our physical and virtual presence around the world, Cloudflare is uniquely positioned to rebuild the core of the Internet. Every customer we bring on increases the size of our [surveillance] network. Google was founded by CIA[1]. There’s no way Cloudflare isn’t. [1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...
  - tyingq 9y ago
    >Google was founded by CIA[1] The linked article does little to establish that, other than early Google got some funding from NSF programs that were of interest to the CIA. That's not unusual being that Sergey was a CS grad student at Stanford. Cloudflare has a different history...it didn't sprout out of a university project.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
billp34 9y ago
has anyone moved their site to argo yet? i am looking for some benchmarks for it. so far i found this site that did move to it and it sounds like they had a little improvement, but no where near as much as cloudflare blog post leads us to believe? https://www.rootusers.com/cloudflare-argo-benchmark/ https://www.rootusers.com/cloudflare-argo-benchmark/ if you have moved over plz let me know how if it has helped you.
Coldewey 9y ago
but it seems very similar to NP2 from datapath

62 points by cemerick 9y ago

hashkb 9y ago

Sounds very similar to how Fastly works.

foobarbazetc 9y ago
The concept of symmetrical DSA is not new. This is an accessible implementation that's more like Akamai SurePath as Fastly doesn't (AFAIK) do route optimization or run premium backbone between POPs.

Edmond 9y ago

Akamai has had SureRoute and Tiered distribution for probably over a decade. It would be nice if the HN front page can stop serving as Ad space for CloudFlare.

user5994461 9y ago
And CloudFlare now does the same... but 1000 times more affordable.
- acdha 9y ago
  That very much depends on what you need and your negotiating prowess. CloudFlare has public pricing for entry-level plans but once you're out of that range it's a traditional sales negotiation with both companies.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    From actually talking to CF, they're still at least a magnitude less expensive than Akamai.
    - acdha 9y ago
      I have no doubt that was your experience. I also know that it's a good idea to consider whether your personal experience is in fact universally applicable before “actually”-ing someone making that assertion.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        It is universally applicable. Their pricing is order(s) of magnitude more affordable. It's not a secret. Everyone who has to dealt with both of them knows that.
        acdha 9y ago
        Please read the thread before replying: I'm not saying that wasn't true for you, only that it wasn't for me – hence my encouragement to shop around if this is a big deal for you. No number of comments from random people on the internet is going to outweigh actual price quotes.
        foobarbazetc 9y ago
        You are 100% wrong.
    - foobarbazetc 9y ago
      Nope. Akamai DSA for us was 50% the cost of CloudFlare Enterprise. You just need to be good at negotiating.
      - manigandham 9y ago
        Doesn't every major CDN do DSA-like stuff now? What does it offer you that Cloudflare's basic plans don't?
        foobarbazetc 9y ago
        Nothing. We now use CloudFlare on the $200/month plan. :) My point is more CloudFlare Enterprise vs Akamai. The prices quoted to us for Enterprise were ridiculous. Sometimes when a vendor starts off with prices not even in the ballpark of Akamai there's no point even engaging. For what it's worth, while CF is reasonable for DSA (haven't enabled Argo yet, so...) their performance is erratic. Akamai/EdgeCast are more predictable because the Argo-like component is built in. Not to mention CF cached content serving speeds aren't great. And they don't cache large files on non-Enterprise. I think something like CF $200 plan plus Argo plus their load balancing product is very powerful and hard to beat. But you still need something to run your downloads from (you can get EdgeCast on a non commit month to month from Speedyrails for that or whatever -- CloudFront also a shitty option.) Also, I hate dealing with sales people in general and I find CF sales people more irritating than usual. Akamai sales also suck. The nicest sales people I've ever dealt with were EdgeCast pre Verizon acquisition. Also Cotendo before Akamai.
tyingq 9y ago
Not specific to HN, but if Akamai wants more buzz and discussion, all they need to do is introduce some small/hobby level plans with up-front pricing and no interaction with salespeople.
- Edmond 9y ago
  That's a fair point...though the bar for Akamai is a lot higher than that of CF as it relates to their customer base...let's just say when your clients include some of the most renowned companies in the world, top US government agencies, the US military...the people you let on your platform becomes a matter of concern.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I see what you mean, but AWS has a similar client list, probably higher risks in that area than a CDN, and manages just fine.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    The real barrier is the pricing. Don't bother talking to Akamai if you don't have one million dollar. Big companies, government and military are the only ones which can afford it. They'd use a registration form too, if there were one.

r1ch 9y ago

The pricing model on this makes no sense. Argo claims to optimize the route between Cloudflare and the origin, which is only used during cache misses, yet they charge $0.10/gb for all traffic from Cloudflare to visitors. Considering most sites will be aiming for a high cache hit rate, I don't see this being very attractive unless your user base is constantly logged in and hitting your backend.

Edmond 9y ago
Not all content can be cached,that's where optimal routing to origin provides the most benefit...for instance if you're serving pages with PII after the user logs in, you can't cache that on a CDN (you can do browser based private caching though).
ec109685 9y ago
The pricing is based on the value they perceive customers will be receiving and use bandwidth as a proxy for usage.

tav 9y ago

Any chance the Smart Routing would be available as a TCP/UDP proxy service? It would be great to take advantage of Cloudflare's network without having to hand over your SSL keys.

deno 9y ago
> Because of our physical and virtual presence around the world, Cloudflare is uniquely positioned to rebuild the core of the Internet. Every customer we bring on increases the size of our [surveillance] network. Google was founded by CIA[1]. There’s no way Cloudflare isn’t. [1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...
- tyingq 9y ago
  >Google was founded by CIA[1] The linked article does little to establish that, other than early Google got some funding from NSF programs that were of interest to the CIA. That's not unusual being that Sergey was a CS grad student at Stanford. Cloudflare has a different history...it didn't sprout out of a university project.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

billp34 9y ago

has anyone moved their site to argo yet? i am looking for some benchmarks for it. so far i found this site that did move to it and it sounds like they had a little improvement, but no where near as much as cloudflare blog post leads us to believe? https://www.rootusers.com/cloudflare-argo-benchmark/ https://www.rootusers.com/cloudflare-argo-benchmark/ if you have moved over plz let me know how if it has helped you.

Coldewey 9y ago

but it seems very similar to NP2 from datapath