This presentation discusses how to set up CloudFlare for a website to improve page speed and security. It explains why to use CloudFlare for DDoS protection and faster page loads. The presenter details how to sign up and configure CloudFlare, including SSL certificates and caching settings. Experience with CloudFlare showed improved response times and reduced content size, though GeoIP stopped working and a partner was blocked. Overall, CloudFlare provides free basic protection and performance benefits.

1. Our CloudFlare Experience
Nick Malcolm
CTO at ThisData

2. ThisData monitors and analyzes
a company’s cloud activity,
and stops Bad Things from happening

3. In the time it takes to hear this talk,
you could set up CloudFlare.

4. Overview
● Why to use CloudFlare
● How to set it up
● Our Results & Mistakes

5. Why?
● DDoS Protection
● Page Speed

8. How do I set it up?
● Sign up, and use them as your nameserver

9. What if I use SSL?
● Set it up, but don’t click the orange clouds yet.
● Add your SSL certificate details
● Turn on the orange clouds

10. What gets blocked?
● Adjustable security levels to challenge visitors
● White/black list by IP, Country
● DDoS Protection
○ Turn on “I’m under attack!” mode to analyze ALL
visitors & stop the baddies

11. What gets cached?
● All static assets (images, JS, CSS)
● Not HTML, by default.
● You can turn it on with white- or black-list rules
● Or via Cache-Control headers
● Can’t cache requests returning cookies

12. Results
● Protection from baddies!
● Response time decreased from 2.5s to 1.5s
● Content size reduced by 300kb
● Everything feels faster!

16. Mistakes
● GeoIP stopped working, as every request looks
like it’s from CloudFlare
● CloudFlare blocked a partner who sends us
webhooks

18. OOPS

19. Considerations:
● Breaks the 1-Bus rule
○ multi-user is enterprise only, starting at $2k :O
● You need to know what to cache
● Not a silver bullet for performance

20. Give it a go
It’s free! Or $20/m for moar features

21. Questions?
Thanks!
@nickmalcolm https://thisdata.com