Traffic Steering and Policies ============================== Magic Transit uses intelligent traffic steering to optimize routing decisions and ensure high availability. Overview -------- Traffic steering controls how traffic flows from Cloudflare's edge to origin infrastructure. Policies can be based on geographic proximity, health checks, custom priorities, and business requirements. Steering Methods ---------------- Geographic Steering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Proximity-Based Routing**: - Traffic routes to nearest healthy origin - Based on geographic distance - Reduces latency for end users **Use Cases**: - Multi-region deployments - Disaster recovery sites - Edge computing architectures **Configuration**: - Define origin locations in Cloudflare - Set geographic priorities - Enable automatic failover Health-Based Steering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Dynamic Routing**: - Traffic only sent to healthy origins - Automatic removal of failed endpoints - Instant failover to backup origins **Health Check Integration**: - Monitors origin availability - Tests application responsiveness - Validates service functionality **Failover Behavior**: - Immediate traffic shift on failure - No manual intervention required - Automatic recovery when health restored Priority-Based Steering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Weighted Distribution**: - Assign priority values to origins - Higher priority receives more traffic - Enables gradual migration or canary deployments **Traffic Splitting**: - Percentage-based distribution - A/B testing capabilities - Blue-green deployment support Custom Policies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Business Rules**: - Route by client location - Route by service type - Route by time of day - Route by load or capacity **Advanced Logic**: - Combine multiple steering methods - Nested policies for complex scenarios - Override rules for maintenance Current Configuration --------------------- Active Steering Policies ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Primary Policy**: - **Method**: Health-based with geographic preference - **Primary Origin**: pfSense at 198.51.100.1 (example) - **Backup Origins**: None currently configured - **Failover**: Automatic on health check failure **Tunnel Steering**: - **IPv4 Tunnel**: Active primary path - **IPv6 Tunnel**: Active secondary path - **Load Balancing**: Not currently enabled - **Failover**: Automatic between tunnels Origin Configuration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Site 1 (Primary)**: - **Endpoint**: 198.51.100.1 (pfSense WAN example) - **Tunnels**: GRE IPv4 + IPv6 - **Health Status**: Online - **Weight**: 100 (primary) Load Balancing -------------- Traffic Distribution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Load balancing distributes traffic across multiple origins: **Methods**: - **Round Robin**: Equal distribution - **Least Connections**: Send to least busy - **Geographic**: Route to nearest origin - **Hash**: Consistent routing for sessions **Session Persistence**: - Source IP-based affinity - Cookie-based persistence - Custom session identifiers **Current Setup**: Single origin configuration - load balancing not currently active. Failover Configuration ---------------------- Automatic Failover ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Trigger Conditions**: - Origin health check failure - Tunnel connectivity loss - High latency threshold exceeded - Manual administrator override **Failover Actions**: 1. Mark origin as unhealthy 2. Stop routing new traffic 3. Shift traffic to backup origin 4. Send administrator alerts 5. Log failover event **Recovery**: - Automatic when health restored - Configurable recovery delay - Gradual traffic reintroduction - Validation before full restoration Manual Failover ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Use Cases**: - Planned maintenance - Security incidents - Performance optimization - Testing and validation **Process**: 1. Access Cloudflare dashboard 2. Adjust traffic steering policy 3. Verify traffic shift completion 4. Monitor origin performance 5. Document change in runbook Performance Optimization ------------------------ Latency Reduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Strategies**: - Route to geographically nearest edge - Optimize tunnel paths - Minimize hop count - Use direct peering (if available) **Monitoring**: - Track latency by region - Identify high-latency paths - Adjust policies to optimize Capacity Management ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Traffic Shaping**: - Rate limiting per origin - Connection limits - Bandwidth allocation - QoS policies **Scaling**: - Add origins to increase capacity - Distribute traffic based on load - Auto-scale during traffic spikes DDoS Mitigation --------------- Attack Traffic Handling ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **At the Edge**: - Attack traffic absorbed at Cloudflare - Only clean traffic forwarded via tunnels - Origin infrastructure protected **Mitigation Techniques**: - Volumetric attack filtering - Protocol validation - Rate limiting - Challenge pages for suspicious traffic **During Attack**: - Traffic steering remains stable - No manual intervention required - Origins continue normal operation - Attacks invisible to origin Post-Attack Analysis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Reporting**: - Attack characteristics and volume - Mitigation effectiveness - Origin impact (should be zero) - Recommendations for improvement Monitoring and Analytics ------------------------ Traffic Metrics ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Real-Time Monitoring**: - Requests per second - Bandwidth utilization - Error rates - Response times **Historical Analysis**: - Traffic trends over time - Peak usage periods - Growth projections - Capacity planning Steering Analytics ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Policy Performance**: - Traffic distribution by policy - Failover frequency and duration - Health check success rates - Geographic routing effectiveness **Optimization Insights**: - Identify bottlenecks - Improve routing decisions - Optimize origin placement - Reduce costs Best Practices -------------- Policy Design ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Recommendations**: - Keep policies simple and maintainable - Document policy logic and reasoning - Test policies before production deployment - Review and update regularly **Avoid**: - Overly complex nested policies - Conflicting steering rules - Untested failover configurations - Insufficient health check coverage Maintenance ~~~~~~~~~~~ **Regular Tasks**: - Review traffic patterns monthly - Update policies for changes - Test failover procedures quarterly - Optimize based on performance data **Change Management**: - Plan policy changes carefully - Test in staging environment - Deploy during maintenance windows - Monitor closely after changes Incident Response ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Playbooks**: - Document common scenarios - Define escalation procedures - Maintain contact information - Practice incident response **Post-Incident**: - Conduct root cause analysis - Update policies if needed - Improve monitoring and alerting - Document lessons learned Advanced Features ----------------- Anycast Consistency ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Traffic steering ensures consistent Anycast behavior: - Same policies across all edges - Synchronized configuration updates - Uniform attack mitigation - Global availability guarantees Edge Computing Integration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Steering policies can integrate with Cloudflare Workers: - Execute logic at the edge - Custom routing decisions - A/B testing and experiments - Personalization and optimization Multi-Cloud Routing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Route traffic across multiple cloud providers: - AWS, Azure, GCP origins - Hybrid cloud architectures - Cloud migration support - Multi-cloud redundancy Future Enhancements ------------------- Planned steering improvements: - Additional backup origins - Geographic load balancing - Advanced traffic analysis - Automated policy optimization