If a cloud origin is detected as anycast, set the real region hint and compare origin latency, cache hit ratio, and request volume before and after.
Cloudflare Smart Tiered Cache can now accept a region hint for origins hosted on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and Oracle Cloud. The hint helps Cloudflare select upper-tier cache locations when an origin IP belongs to an anycast or regional front end that obscures where the application actually runs.
The change addresses a subtle performance problem: a network probe may find the provider’s nearby edge, not the backend region. Choosing an upper tier from that signal can send cache misses across continents unnecessarily.
Why the old signal can be misleading
Smart Tiered Cache normally measures latency from Cloudflare data centers and chooses a single upper tier near the origin. Concentrating misses there improves cache efficiency. With anycast, the same IP can appear close to many locations because different probes reach different cloud edges.
Cloudflare detects ambiguous anycast origins and safely falls back to multiple upper tiers, but that can reduce cache concentration and send more requests to the origin. A region hint restores geographic context.
How to enable it
In the Cloudflare dashboard, open Caching, Tiered Cache, then Origin Configuration. For an IP detected as anycast, choose Set Region Hint and select a value such as `aws:us-east-1` or `gcp:europe-west1`. The setting is also available through the API and Terraform for bulk or infrastructure-as-code workflows.
Cloudflare says Smart Tiered Cache is available on all plans at no additional charge. The region-hint interface initially supports the four named public clouds.
Measure the route, not just page speed
Record origin response time, cache hit ratio, cache-miss volume, data transfer, and error rates before the change. Confirm the application’s real region rather than guessing from an IP registration. Afterward, test from the regions where users actually are; a lower global average can still hide a regression in an important market.
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