Cloudflare, Inc.

Michael John Vanderwater

Nicholas Alexander Wondra

Nuno Miguel Lourenço Diegues

Erich Alfred Heine

Arég Harutyunyan

Adam Simon Chalmers

Igor Postelnik

Braden Michael Ehrat

Jérôme Fleury

Jay A Kreibich

Richard Thompson

A unified network service that connects multiple disparate private networks and end user client devices operating on separate networks is described. The multiple disparate private networks and end user client devices connect to a distributed cloud computing network that provides routing services, security services, and performance services, and that can be controlled consistently regardless of the connection type. The unified network service provides uniform access control at the L3 layer (e.g., at the IP layer) or at a higher layer using user identity information (e.g., a zero-trust model). The disparate private networks are run on top of the distributed cloud computing network. The virtual routing layer of the distributed cloud computing network allows customers of the service to have private resources visible only to client devices (e.g., user devices of the customer and/or server devices of the customer) of the organization while using address space that potentially overlaps with other customers of the distributed cloud computing network.

Unified network service that connects multiple disparate private networks and end user client devices operating on separate networks

An IPSec tunnel request for establishing an IPSec tunnel from a customer router to an anycast IP address of a distributed cloud computing network is received. The same anycast IP address is shared among compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network. A handshake is performed with the customer router from a first compute server including generating security associations for encrypting and decrypting IPSec traffic. The security associations are propagated to each compute server and are used for encrypting and decrypting traffic.

Internet protocol security (IPSec) tunnel using anycast at a distributed cloud computing network

A request from a client device is received at a first one of a plurality of compute nodes at a first one of a plurality of data centers of a distributed cloud computing network. A destination of the request is determined. An optimized route for transmitting the request toward an origin server that corresponds with the destination of the request is determined, where the optimized route is based on at least in part on probe data between data centers of the distributed cloud computing network for a plurality of transit connections, and where the optimized route has an IP address that encodes an identification of which of the plurality of transit connections is to be used to deliver the request. The request is transmitted to a next hop as defined by the optimized route over the identified one of the plurality of transit connections.

Intelligently routing internet traffic

A first transport protocol connection is established between a first proxy network element and a second proxy network element. The first proxy network element receives from a first Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) client, first BGP data destined to a second BGP client that is connected to the second proxy network element. The first BGP data is transmitted to the second proxy network element through the first transport protocol connection for delivery to the second BGP client. The first proxy network element receives second BGP data destined to the second BGP client. Responsive to determining that the first transport protocol connection is down, the first proxy network element stores the second BGP data and establishes a second transport protocol connection to the second proxy network element. The second BGP data is transmitted to the second proxy network element through the second transport protocol connection.

Method and system for reliable application layer data transmission through unreliable transport layer connections in a network

Method and network elements (NEs) for enabling reliable application layer data transmission through an unreliable network are described. A proxy NE receives from a first NE through a first transport protocol connection first application layer data. The proxy NE transmits the first application layer data through a second transport protocol connection towards the second NE. The proxy NE receives from the first NE through the first transport protocol connection second application layer data that is destined to the second NE. Responsive to determining that there are no transport protocol connections for transmitting the second application layer date, the proxy NE stores the second application layer data in the first proxy NE. Responsive to determining that a third transport protocol connection is established towards the second NE, the proxy NE transmits the second application layer data through the third transport protocol connection towards the second NE.

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Champaign, IL, United States of America

Michael John Vanderwater