7 ms·

My 2c: 1) Is this worthwhile? Looks like ~500 CPU cores were saved (are these real cores, or does this include hyperthread cores?). I don't know cloudflare's c

My 2c: 1) Is this worthwhile? Looks like ~500 CPU cores were saved (are these real cores, or does this include hyperthread cores?). I don't know cloudflare's costs, but this seems like single digit servers and probably savings only in the $XX,XXX range. Not nothing, but do you expect a positive ROI on engineering? 2) If you do want to go to this detail, did you consider in putting the filter at the deserialization step, preventing the headers from being created in the first place?

saagarjha 2y ago
If an engineer spends a couple of days on it then the savings seem worthwhile?
aetherspawn 2y ago
It might only be $XX,XXX but it is forever. Power savings forever. Lower carbon emissions. etc Nice to see a company that cares about making things 1% faster rather than trying to analyse headers with AI to sell me sandals or something stupid like that.
- unusualmonkey 2y ago
  It's not forever, in another comment they're reworking their entire internal comms protocol.
_zoltan_ 2y ago
I don't understand your point about the ROI. Let's say it's 40k a year for 5 years that's 200k. That's a multi year salary Hungary/Poland (I have no idea of CF has offices there.)
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Not just that but there's no time frame in the blog post. They mention that Pingora was released a few months ago (which was really 10) however I doubt they spent 10 months on the singular change. So lets very conservatively assume 2 months. 12 months in a year so 6 40k savings a year. Thats 240k which is still below a fang salary but yeah it's per year forever and also as cloudflare gets bigger the 40k would turn into 50k without anybody acknowledging it.
- unusualmonkey 2y ago
  And if it introduces a bug that causes downtime that could cost millions. Setting up a offshore office takes time and focus that could be spent on other initiatives etc.
cryptonym 2y ago
That's such a tiny corner case but yet something you can easily publish. Fuelling marketing content to ends with hundred geeks discussing if what CF is doing makes sense or how much they care about perf. That's million dollars.

saagarjha 2y ago

If an engineer spends a couple of days on it then the savings seem worthwhile?

aetherspawn 2y ago

It might only be $XX,XXX but it is forever. Power savings forever. Lower carbon emissions. etc Nice to see a company that cares about making things 1% faster rather than trying to analyse headers with AI to sell me sandals or something stupid like that.

unusualmonkey 2y ago
It's not forever, in another comment they're reworking their entire internal comms protocol.

_zoltan_ 2y ago

I don't understand your point about the ROI. Let's say it's 40k a year for 5 years that's 200k. That's a multi year salary Hungary/Poland (I have no idea of CF has offices there.)

lesuorac 2y ago
Not just that but there's no time frame in the blog post. They mention that Pingora was released a few months ago (which was really 10) however I doubt they spent 10 months on the singular change. So lets very conservatively assume 2 months. 12 months in a year so 6 40k savings a year. Thats 240k which is still below a fang salary but yeah it's per year forever and also as cloudflare gets bigger the 40k would turn into 50k without anybody acknowledging it.
unusualmonkey 2y ago
And if it introduces a bug that causes downtime that could cost millions. Setting up a offshore office takes time and focus that could be spent on other initiatives etc.

cryptonym 2y ago

That's such a tiny corner case but yet something you can easily publish. Fuelling marketing content to ends with hundred geeks discussing if what CF is doing makes sense or how much they care about perf. That's million dollars.