Cloudflare Introduces Argo: A Virtual Backbone for a Faster, More Reliable Internet

SAN FRANCISCO, May 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cloudflare, the leading Internet performance and security company, today announced Argo, a service that intelligently routes traffic across the Internet for a faster, more reliable, and more secure online experience.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/68862f17-0677-481b-a1ed-ce0d00fa3a13

The Internet is inherently unreliable. Its massive collection of networks from different providers experiences delays and outages all the time. Internet users experience these problems as slowness reaching websites or sluggishness using mobile apps.

Cloudflare’s Argo is like Waze for the Internet. Argo routes around traffic jams and broken Internet links by continuously monitoring the performance and reliability of the global Internet, making websites and apps respond faster and work more reliably.

Argo combines connections between Cloudflare’s data centers into a virtual backbone that is always encrypted, optimized for performance, and massively redundant. In addition to accelerating requests for dynamic content, Argo provides tiered caching that increases cache hit rates, saving web application developers bandwidth and costly CPU time.

“Every second, Cloudflare sees traffic from nearly every eyeball network to every significant origin network on the Internet,” explained Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “Argo uses real-time latency and packet loss data from Cloudflare’s existing traffic to continuously calculate the most efficient routes. The result is Cloudflare’s Argo can deliver a packet from any two points on Earth more effectively than any conventional Internet network.”

Cloudflare’s network of more than 115 data centers in 57 countries puts websites and APIs close to end users by caching content near to them, but before Argo, for uncached, dynamic content, requests still needed to traverse the Internet. Argo is a virtual backbone which finds the best route between any two points on the network, resulting in faster, more reliable websites, APIs, and apps. This translates into higher SEO rankings, better time to first byte (TTFB), and increased retention for Internet properties and applications, resulting in happier users.

In tests across 50,000 Cloudflare customers, Argo reduced latency by an average of 35 percent while resulting in 27 percent fewer connection timeouts for Internet applications. Argo ensures that as Internet users become increasingly mobile, speed and reliability are maintained no matter where users or servers are located.

With Argo, customers benefit from:

• Snappier Websites and Faster APIs: Cloudflare handles more than 10 percent of all HTTP/HTTPS Internet traffic, providing Argo with live intelligence on the fastest and most efficient routes across the globe.
• Reduced Costs: Argo reduces latency, server load, bandwidth usage, and per-request fees to storage providers.
• Increased Reliability: Argo’s live view of Internet outages enables it to route around cable cuts, packet loss, and congestion.
• Ensured Security: All Argo traffic is encrypted across Cloudflare’s network, ensuring a high degree of confidence in its security.

“Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a network is defined by the square of the number of nodes that make up the network,” explained John Graham-Cumming, CTO of Cloudflare. “This creates a chicken and egg problem when trying to deploy new, more efficient technologies on existing networks. Cloudflare’s Argo allows us to upgrade the core of Internet while every node remains connected, preserving its value while improving its performance and security. It means we can rebuild a better Internet the way we would have 30 years ago if we’d known everything we know today.”

Consumer Sites Use Argo for Faster and More Reliable Connections for their Users
“With Argo, we decreased latency by up to 36 percent and saw 42 percent fewer timeouts, meaning more matches and better connections for our users,” said Alex Dumitriu, CIO of OkCupid. “Argo has improved the online experience for our users, making it easier than ever for them to make interesting and meaningful connections.”

Messaging Apps Are Improved with Argo
"We're in a constant search for ways to improve our product experience at Discord, including improving responsiveness and reliability," said Stanislav Vishnevskiy, CTO of Discord. "Argo allowed us to cut our load times by an average of 33 milliseconds with no development effort by our team."

Health Companies Reach More Customers Using Argo
"Our main focus is providing the best natural and organic products from top wellness brands at affordable prices to help our customers lead healthy lives,” said Sam Wolf, Founder and Chief Wellness Spreader at LuckyVitamin, an online health foods store of over 40,000 wellness products ranging from vitamins and supplements to organic beauty and skin care, natural foods and snacks, non-toxic cleaning products and more. “With Argo enabled, we’ve seen request times to LuckyVitamin.com drop by 26 percent, translating into an improved shopping experience for our customers that helps us grow our online business."

Online Learning Resources Need Argo for a Faster User Experience
“Argo allows us to deliver a top-notch user experience globally while keeping costs low and technical operations simple,” said Matthew Glotzbach, CEO of Quizlet. “International growth is a big focus for us, and with Argo, we've seen that students in Brazil are able to access Quizlet 47 percent faster; we believe this increase in speed will help us fulfill our mission of helping students practice and master what they're learning, no matter where they are in the world.”

To learn how Argo can help your web property, please visit the Argo product page or read our blog.

*We are big fans of Waze, but to be clear, Argo is in no way affiliated with the Waze technology or application.