Auto Trader UK

Why Auto Trader UK Chose Cloudflare For Its Cloud Migration

对于任何与 IT 部门长期合作的企业来说，这都是一个挑战：如何从其当前的基于数据中心的物理硬件基础架构过渡到在云中实现并维护的下一代架构。

Auto Trader — the largest automobile classifieds service in the United Kingdom and Ireland — recently decided it was time to make that crucial migration. The company’s site offers an array of services, including key information on vehicle valuation and seller reputation. It also hosts over 3,000 custom websites for local dealerships across the UK, who rely on Auto Trader to maintain their online presence.

总而言之，Auto Trader 平台每月的访问量超过 5500 万。除了数以千计的经销商依赖其平台外，每年完成的交易超过 1000 万笔，收入达 3.3 亿英镑 — 此次向云端迁移是一项风险极高的任务，没有一点出错的余地。

The Challenge

在将这些关键任务服务切换到 Cloudflare 时，Auto Trader 的协议栈包含多种不同的技术，其中包括：PowerDNS（本地 DNS）、Verisign DNS（关键外部域）、Arbor（DDoS 防御）和 F5（负载均衡 / WAF）。

采用多种不同的产品有其缺点，包括缺少 API 访问权限或缺乏对自动化的支持，因此需要变通方法和重复性工作。这种复杂性的增加使得任务比要求的难度更大 — Auto Trader 必须为每个特定的用例购买单独的产品。

Auto Trader 系统工程师 Mark Bell 补充道：“我们希望有个东西能将所有 DNS、性能和安全需求结合在一个统一的界面中。”

The Cloudflare Difference

借助 Cloudflare，所有这些产品都包含在同一服务中，可以通过单个集成仪表板进行管理。这意味着可以节省大量的开销 — 无需再维护任何硬件 — 获得的用户体验便是导航起来非常容易。

Cloudflare 是 Auto Trader 考虑的几个选择之一：“我们相信会尽力而为，为此，着眼于市场上现有的各种产品。”Bell 说道。经过广泛的研究和内部讨论，有一个明确的赢家。

”There was only one decision to make, really: it was to go with Cloudflare, because you’re so far ahead of the competition in regards to the capabilities and the features that you offer. And also, the support — with things like live chat, it’s been very effective and really helpful.”

- Mark Bell Systems Engineer, Auto Trader Auto Trader was also drawn to Cloudflare’s flexibility, with extensive API support for automation tasks and the [Cloudflare Workers](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare-workers/) platform to build out custom functionality. It also was keen to take advantage of the extensive cost savings afforded by the switch.“A key consideration was cost, and we believe Cloudflare are very competitive for the service that they offer in comparison with other providers. Another attraction was the interconnect program between Google Cloud and Cloudflare — which offers up to 75% savings on egress costs.” - Mark Bell Systems Engineer, Auto Trader 借助基于云的解决方案带来的便利，Auto Trader 的性能得到了显着改善：其以前的 DNS 提供商 Verisign 的平均延迟时间为 20-25 毫秒，而使用 Cloudflare，延迟减少到 10-13 毫秒，性能提高了 50％。

Security has also been a vital component to Auto Trader's migration, which leverages Cloudflare's WAF — powered by the collective intelligence of millions of Internet properties on Cloudflare's network — to defend against hostile actors.

通过从本地部署基础架构迁移到 Cloudflare，Auto Trader 能够提高其站点性能，阻止敌对人员，并提高其团队的运营效率。对于任何公司而言，这都是一个巨大的胜利，Cloudflare 自豪地成为其云迁移的一部分。

“Performance and Security are imperative to our company, especially going forward as we look to utilize more public cloud based services. Cloudflare’s WAF and built in zone security level has enhanced our security and detected and blocked malicious activity.

I have no doubt in my mind that Cloudflare is the best out there at the moment in what they do.” - Mark Bell Systems Engineer, Auto Trader *** ** * ** ***

You can learn more about Cloudflare's suite of security and performance products here.