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According to their press release it says: > That's why Cloudflare plans to eliminate egress fees, deliver object storage that is at least 10% cheaper than S3,

According to their press release it says: > That's why Cloudflare plans to eliminate egress fees, deliver object storage that is at least 10% cheaper than S3, and make infrequent access completely free for customers A few elements of concern. It says they "plan to", so we don't know if this is near term or some moonshot type of goal. It also states earlier in the press release that the free egress frees are offered via the "Bandwidth Alliance", which removes bandwidth charges between member providers. While it is noteworthy that GCP (Google Cloud Provider) and Microsoft Azure are part of this alliance, AWS is not! So does this mean that egress fees will be charged if an AWS server requests the file? I also don't know what to think about the statement that they plan to make infrequent access completely free... does that mean that I can throw files onto R2 for archive purposes and not pay anything? Because that is what it sounds like by that statement, but it obviously sounds impractical or too good to be true. Original Press Release: https://www.cloudflare.com/press-releases/2021/cloudflare-announces-r2-storage/ https://www.cloudflare.com/press-releases/2021/cloudflare-an...

nemothekid 5y ago
>While it is noteworthy that GCP (Google Cloud Provider) and Microsoft Azure are part of this alliance, AWS is not! So does this mean that egress fees will be charged if an AWS server requests the file? The bandwidth alliance means when Cloudflare requests a file from GCP, GCP won't charge you egress. Cloudflare will then deliver your file to your customer for free.
- bbu 5y ago
  small correction: gcp will still charge you but at a reduced rate.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    Do you know how much the discount is? I was looking into this regarding Azure just yesterday, but it looks like they only discount the egress bandwidth by a pitiful 9% or so.
greg-m 5y ago
Hey, R2 PM here - there's no question that the product will have 0 egress charges, regardless of destination. For archival use-cases, you do still pay us for data storage. We're referring to not charging for operations for infrequent access - we'll likely drop the stored data charge down too, eventually, but the current pricing is complex enough.
- politician 5y ago
  Hey Greg, I was just talking to Sales about R2 yesterday, and they said that it was not live yet. Can you clarify availability?
  - judge2020 5y ago
    > R2 is currently under development... We’ll be announcing an open beta where any user will be able to sign up for the service soon. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage/#:~:text=Accessing%20Cloudflare%20R2 https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage/#:... In my opinion, expect 3-6 months for the beta, then maybe 2 years for GA. Storage at scale isn't easy, especially if they want to be comparable to aws in speed, SLA, data protection (ie. duplicated to 3+ physical data silos), etc.
- Matheus28 5y ago
  I honestly can't see how it'd be profitable if someone were to host several TB worth of files that are very frequently downloaded. My fear with anything "free" is that once you actually use it A LOT, it will be pulled from under you. I'm a lot more comfortable with $0.001/GB than $0/GB.
  - mst 5y ago
    My guess is that carrier grade links are generally symmetrical and cloudflare's provisioning requirements are driven by incoming DDoS traffic, which makes the economics quite different than they would be otherwise.
  - prirun 5y ago
spullara 5y ago
I think they mean the cost for access would be completely free (if not accessed much) but not the storage as those are separate fees.

nemothekid 5y ago

>While it is noteworthy that GCP (Google Cloud Provider) and Microsoft Azure are part of this alliance, AWS is not! So does this mean that egress fees will be charged if an AWS server requests the file? The bandwidth alliance means when Cloudflare requests a file from GCP, GCP won't charge you egress. Cloudflare will then deliver your file to your customer for free.

bbu 5y ago
small correction: gcp will still charge you but at a reduced rate.
- GordonS 5y ago
  Do you know how much the discount is? I was looking into this regarding Azure just yesterday, but it looks like they only discount the egress bandwidth by a pitiful 9% or so.

greg-m 5y ago

Hey, R2 PM here - there's no question that the product will have 0 egress charges, regardless of destination. For archival use-cases, you do still pay us for data storage. We're referring to not charging for operations for infrequent access - we'll likely drop the stored data charge down too, eventually, but the current pricing is complex enough.

politician 5y ago
Hey Greg, I was just talking to Sales about R2 yesterday, and they said that it was not live yet. Can you clarify availability?
- judge2020 5y ago
  > R2 is currently under development... We’ll be announcing an open beta where any user will be able to sign up for the service soon. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage/#:~:text=Accessing%20Cloudflare%20R2 https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage/#:... In my opinion, expect 3-6 months for the beta, then maybe 2 years for GA. Storage at scale isn't easy, especially if they want to be comparable to aws in speed, SLA, data protection (ie. duplicated to 3+ physical data silos), etc.
Matheus28 5y ago
I honestly can't see how it'd be profitable if someone were to host several TB worth of files that are very frequently downloaded. My fear with anything "free" is that once you actually use it A LOT, it will be pulled from under you. I'm a lot more comfortable with $0.001/GB than $0/GB.
- mst 5y ago
  My guess is that carrier grade links are generally symmetrical and cloudflare's provisioning requirements are driven by incoming DDoS traffic, which makes the economics quite different than they would be otherwise.
- prirun 5y ago

spullara 5y ago

I think they mean the cost for access would be completely free (if not accessed much) but not the storage as those are separate fees.