Cloudflare adds Regional Tiered Cache to speed global cache misses
Cloudflare has extended its Tiered Cache offering with Regional Tiered Cache, an Enterprise-only feature that adds a caching layer between lower-tier data centers and upper-tier ones when those layers sit in different regions. In early trials, customers who enabled the feature reported 50-100ms improvements in tail cache hit response times.
Tiered Cache organizes Cloudflare data centers into upper and lower tiers. Lower-tier data centers, typically closest to visitors, fetch content from upper-tier data centers on a cache miss. Upper-tier data centers are the only ones allowed to request content from the origin. This concentrates connections to origin servers, reducing resource consumption and lowering egress costs.
The latency/load tradeoff of existing topologies
Without Tiered Cache, every data center that misses on a request goes straight to the origin. That creates two problems: visitor latency for global audiences whose origins are distant, and needless load on origin servers from many simultaneous connections for the same content.
Tiered cache solves the second problem by ensuring only upper-tier data centers contact the origin, but the two predefined topologies each make a compromise:
Smart Tiered Cache dynamically selects the single data center closest to the origin as the sole upper-tier. This delivers strong cache-hit ratios and minimal origin connections, but can add latency for visitors who are far from that chosen data center. For example, if the upper-tier is in New York, a miss in Tokyo means requests cross the Pacific and most of the continental US to check the New York cache, then make the full trip back.
Generic Global Tiered Cache treats roughly 40 of Cloudflare's largest data centers as upper-tiers, all of which can reach the origin on a miss.
This reduces far-away visitors' latency, but it multiplies the connections and load seen by the origin. Enterprise customers with a custom topology face versions of the same tradeoff.
Region-aware layering
Regional Tiered Cache resolves the tension by inserting a middle cache tier within each region. When a lower-tier data center misses on a fetch, and the assigned upper-tier is in a different region, it queries the regional tier first. If the regional tier lacks the asset, it forwards the request to the upper-tier, and on response it stores the content so other lower-tiers in that region can benefit from the cached copy.
The effect is a better chance content is available closer to visitors before any request is sent across a long network path, cutting latency while preserving the origin-side benefits of a Smart or Custom topology. Regional Tiered Cache is therefore positioned specifically for customers using Smart or Custom Tiered Cache with upper-tiers concentrated in only one or two regions; store owners already on Generic Global, with upper-tiers spread broadly, won't gain much from it.
Enabling Regional Tiered Cache
Enterprise customers can switch it on through the Cloudflare dashboard or via the API.
In the dashboard:
- Beyond login and website selection, go to the Cache tab and pick the Tiered Cache section.
- With Smart or Custom tiered cache as the topology, the option for Regional Tiered Cache will appear.
API configuration follows the documented Regional Tiered Cache setting endpoints and uses standard GET and PATCH calls:
curl --request GET \
--url https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/zone_identifier/cache/regional_tiered_cache \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'X-Auth-Email: 'curl --request PATCH \
--url https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/zone_identifier/cache/regional_tiered_cache \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'X-Auth-Email: ' \
--data '{
"value": "on"
}'Regional Tiered Cache is the first update in a planned series of upgrades to Cloudflare's Tiered Cache. Feedback is open through normal support channels.
