Today we’re excited to announce Cloudflare Network Interconnect (CNI). CNI allows our customers to interconnect branch and HQ locations directly with Cloudflare wherever they are, bringing Cloudflare’s full suite of network functions to their physical network edge. Using CNI to interconnect provides security, reliability, and performance benefits vs. using the public Internet to connect to Cloudflare. And because of Cloudflare’s global network reach, connecting to our network is straightforward no matter where on the planet your infrastructure and employees are.

At its most basic level, an interconnect is a link between two networks. Today, we’re offering customers the following options to interconnect with Cloudflare’s network:

• Via a private network interconnect (PNI). A physical cable (or a virtual “pseudo-wire”; more on that later) that connects two networks.
• Over an Internet Exchange (IX). A common switch fabric where multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet networks can interconnect with each other.

To use a real world analogy: Cloudflare over the years has built a network of highways across the Internet to handle all our customers’ traffic. We’re now providing dedicated on-ramps for our customers’ on-prem networks to get onto those highways.

Why interconnect with Cloudflare?

CNI provides more reliable, faster, and more private connectivity between your infrastructure and Cloudflare’s. This delivers benefits across our product suite. Here are some examples of specific products and how you can combine them with CNI:

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