Argo for Spectrum: General Availability
Cloudflare has announced the general availability of Argo for Spectrum, extending the benefits of smart routing to any TCP-based application. The service aims to reduce latency and packet loss, improving throughput and overall connectivity for non-HTTP protocols that previously had limited performance optimization options.
While web traffic dominates popular perception of the Internet, many workflows rely on TCP-based protocols for essential tasks. This includes Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), git over SSH, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), and SMTP. Consumer use cases such as Minecraft gaming also fall into this category. Spectrum was launched in 2018 to extend Cloudflare's DDoS protection to these any TCP or UDP-based protocols, but performance tuning could not effectively address latency and throughput issues inherent to these connections.
Latency and Throughput
Network performance analysis typically centers on two primary metrics:
- Latency: The time it takes for a data packet to travel between two systems.
- Throughput: The amount of data sent per second.
The relationship between these metrics is defined by the bandwidth delay product. With TCP, the sender must wait for an acknowledgment before sending more data. Higher latency introduces longer waiting periods, which directly limits the maximum achievable throughput. Applications that require high data transfer rates suffer when latency is significant, even if the underlying network links have substantial bandwidth capacity.
Routing Intelligence
Argo for Spectrum leverages Cloudflare's visibility into approximately 20% of the Alexa top 10 million websites to make real-time routing decisions. This vantage point allows the service to identify congested, slow, or lossy networks based on near real-time traffic observations. The routing plane uses this intelligence to send packets along faster routes than standard Internet routing would typically choose.
The optimization approach is the same one used by Argo Smart Routing for HTTP requests, but it now applies to any TCP protocol. Argo for Spectrum splits the connection into two segments, terminating the TCP link with the user close to the client and creating a lower-latency path between the Cloudflare edge and the origin server. By minimizing the bandwidth delay product across this chain of connections, throughput improves significantly over communicating directly with the origin.
Benchmark Performance
Independent testing was conducted using Catchpoint, a third-party performance monitoring service. Tests measured file transfer performance for a 10MB file from a server located in the Netherlands, with client locations in Rabat, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Lima.
The results showed throughput increases of up to 108% in locations such as Tokyo, with an 85% improvement on average across all test locations.
Configuration and Protocol Support
Argo for Spectrum supports any TCP-based protocol, which covers file transfers, remote access tools, media streaming and gaming protocols. The setup process aims to be straightforward. When creating an application via Spectrum, enabling the "Argo Smart Routing" toggle activates smart routing.
