--- title: Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions description: Cloudflare's Smart Tiered Cache now supports public cloud origins hosted on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud that use anycast or regional unicast IPs.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions | daily.dev og:description: Cloudflare's Smart Tiered Cache now supports public cloud origins hosted on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud that use anycast or regional unicast IPs.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/hW6QXksQc.png og:image:alt: Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions **[Cloudflare](https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare)** · 8 min read · 7 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary Cloudflare's Smart Tiered Cache now supports public cloud origins hosted on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud that use anycast or regional unicast IPs. Previously, anycast origins caused Smart Tiered Cache to fall back to multiple upper tiers, reducing cache efficiency and sometimes causing cross-continental hairpin routing. The fix lets customers provide a cloud region hint (e.g., aws:us-east-1) via the dashboard, API, or Terraform. Cloudflare then maps that region to the optimal upper tier using continuously refreshed latency probe data and IP range files from each cloud provider, selecting a primary and fallback upper tier from different PoPs. Geographic fallbacks apply when probe data is insufficient. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I fix Cloudflare Smart Tiered Cache hairpin routing when my origin is behind an anycast IP on AWS or GCP? Set a cloud region hint on the origin IP in Cloudflare's Tiered Cache Origin Configuration (e.g. aws:us-east-1 or gcp:europe-west1). This tells Smart Tiered Cache which cloud region the origin actually lives in, letting it pick a single correct primary and fallback upper tier instead of falling back to multiple tiers or routing through a distant data center. It works for AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud, and can be set via dashboard, API, or Terraform. _daily.dev surfaces practical CDN configuration changes like this for engineers tuning cache hit ratios._ ### How does Cloudflare detect if an origin IP is behind anycast? Cloudflare compares probe latencies from multiple checkpoint data centers to the origin IP and checks them against the physical speed-of-light limit for fiber. If the combined latency between two checkpoints is faster than physically possible for a single origin location, the origin must be answering from multiple places, meaning it's anycast rather than a single fixed unicast address. _engineers debugging cache and latency anomalies can track CDN internals like this on daily.dev._ ### What upper tier does Cloudflare Smart Tiered Cache use for a cloud region with no existing probe data? When a cloud region has no probe data yet, Smart Tiered Cache falls back to a geographic guess: the closest Tier 1 point of presence. As origins are onboarded in that region and latency probe data accumulates every 15 minutes, the system automatically switches from the geographic fallback to the data-backed optimal upper tier. _teams rolling out origins in new cloud regions can follow CDN behavior changes like this via daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@allinonetools** · 2 upvotes > This is a solid improvement. Reducing unnecessary cache hops and hairpin routing should make a noticeable difference for cloud-hosted origins. **@ckphirakbot** · 0 upvotes >  ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Amazon Route 53 Global Resolver now lets you add and remove AWS Regions for anycast DNS resolution](https://daily.dev/posts/amazon-route-53-global-resolver-now-lets-you-add-and-remove-aws-regions-for-anycast-dns-resolution-mmgoawg6e) · AWS · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AWS Previews Route 53 Global Resolver to Decouple DNS from Regional Failures](https://daily.dev/posts/aws-previews-route-53-global-resolver-to-decouple-dns-from-regional-failures-i3aosgrjk) · InfoQ · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your Worker can now have its own cache in front of it](https://daily.dev/posts/your-worker-can-now-have-its-own-cache-in-front-of-it-ium8tvtyb) · Cloudflare · 37 upvotes · 4 comments - [Optimize object storage costs automatically with smart tier—now generally available](https://daily.dev/posts/optimize-object-storage-costs-automatically-with-smart-tier-now-generally-available-lroeob5qn) · Microsoft Azure · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud), [#cloudflare](https://daily.dev/tags/cloudflare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc"},"datePublished":"2026-07-10T13:33:34.519Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:37:07.459Z","description":"Cloudflare's Smart Tiered Cache now supports public cloud origins hosted on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud that use anycast or regional unicast IPs....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5e46cddee75ad3056f7d93e37242f29e?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5e46cddee75ad3056f7d93e37242f29e?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Cloudflare","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Cloudflare","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/38522e1d11354cd6b7af66f9d4316735","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare"},"commentCount":2,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":7},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}],"keywords":"cloud,cloudflare","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cloudflare","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/cloudflare"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Improving Smart Tiered Cache for Public Cloud Regions"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"This is a solid improvement. Reducing unnecessary cache hops and hairpin routing should make a noticeable difference for cloud-hosted origins.","datePublished":"2026-07-11T02:58:29.392Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/hW6QXksQc#c-orpMbM7wA","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"AllInOneTools","url":"https://daily.dev/allinonetools","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--4ZT8QlF0--/f_auto/v1769790028/avatars/avatar_igzBsWloJeaegzm9bQltZ?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"","datePublished":"2026-07-11T05:04:21.445Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/hW6QXksQc#c-k4a8v6bjT","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Chhoeun K.Keaphirunphirakbot","url":"https://daily.dev/ckphirakbot","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/AATXAJyu3svre68RXAs8yXKtzZsd-K-S7yMa4mOqbq1m=s100"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/improving-smart-tiered-cache-for-public-cloud-regions-hw6qxksqc#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I fix Cloudflare Smart Tiered Cache hairpin routing when my origin is behind an anycast IP on AWS or GCP?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Set a cloud region hint on the origin IP in Cloudflare's Tiered Cache Origin Configuration (e.g. aws:us-east-1 or gcp:europe-west1). This tells Smart Tiered Cache which cloud region the origin actually lives in, letting it pick a single correct primary and fallback upper tier instead of falling back to multiple tiers or routing through a distant data center. It works for AWS, GCP, Azure, and Oracle Cloud, and can be set via dashboard, API, or Terraform. daily.dev surfaces practical CDN configuration changes like this for engineers tuning cache hit ratios."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How does Cloudflare detect if an origin IP is behind anycast?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Cloudflare compares probe latencies from multiple checkpoint data centers to the origin IP and checks them against the physical speed-of-light limit for fiber. If the combined latency between two checkpoints is faster than physically possible for a single origin location, the origin must be answering from multiple places, meaning it's anycast rather than a single fixed unicast address. engineers debugging cache and latency anomalies can track CDN internals like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What upper tier does Cloudflare Smart Tiered Cache use for a cloud region with no existing probe data?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"When a cloud region has no probe data yet, Smart Tiered Cache falls back to a geographic guess: the closest Tier 1 point of presence. As origins are onboarded in that region and latency probe data accumulates every 15 minutes, the system automatically switches from the geographic fallback to the data-backed optimal upper tier. teams rolling out origins in new cloud regions can follow CDN behavior changes like this via daily.dev."}}]} ```