February 2020 Summaries

Black History Month serves as a reminder of the contributions made by African-Americans to society and industry. In tech, African-Americans make up around 7.4% of the workforce with less than 1% in managerial or executive roles. Barriers to increasing these numbers include the "pipeline" problem, an inhospitable culture in relevant industries, reluctance to train new employees, and the fast-changing nature of the industry. To create more inclusion in tech, recruiters can build diverse pipelines by partnering with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), attending events like Afrotech, or collaborating with organizations such as Black Girls Code, /dev/color, and Project Include. These initiatives focus on teaching coding skills to young African-American girls, empowering black software engineers, and promoting data-driven advocacy for diversity and inclusion in tech.

Cloudflare discusses their strategy of ensuring security by encrypting data both in transit and at rest. They explore the issue of data vulnerability when it's in use, specifically within RAM. The company investigates various technologies to protect against physical system attacks, such as enclaves. However, they find that Secure Memory Encryption (SME) offered by AMD EPYC processors provides a more comprehensive solution for encrypting all memory at scale. They test the performance impact of enabling SME and find it to be less than expected, thus reducing the worry of data exfiltration from a stolen server.

The text discusses the use of AMD 2nd Gen EPYC 7642 processors in tenth-generation "Gen X" servers and highlights tuning efforts that led to an additional 6% performance. It explains the concept of Thermal Design Power (TDP) and dynamic power, emphasizing that TDP is about how much heat a processor generates rather than its maximum or average power draw. The text also explores determinism modes and Configurable Thermal Design Power (cTDP), which can be adjusted to optimize performance and power consumption. Finally, it mentions the exploration of Nodes Per Socket (NPS) options in the AMD EPYC 7642 processor but does not observe significant deltas in terms of performance. The text concludes by stating that further improvements are possible through collaboration with AMD and internal teams within Cloudflare.

The AMD 2nd Gen EPYC processors, codenamed Rome, have been challenging Intel's dominance in the CPU market with significant improvements over their predecessors. These enhancements include a die shrink from 14nm to 7nm, doubling of top end core count from 32 to 64, and larger L3 cache size. In lab testing, an AMD EPYC 7642-powered server outperformed a Gen 9 Intel Xeon Platinum 6162 server by processing 50% more requests per second due to its large L3 cache and higher sustained operating frequency. However, in production, the AMD EPYC server did not perform as well but still outperformed all previous generations. The AMD EPYC 7642's performance opens up possibilities for upcoming servers to maintain core count while processing more requests per second than their predecessors.

Cloudflare has introduced Secrets and Environment Variables for its Workers platform, aiming to make deploying and maintaining scripts a low-risk endeavor. The new features were designed based on user feedback and cover two different use cases: storing plain text variables that can be updated and encrypted variables that are hidden from view. Usability testing was conducted with developers to refine the feature before its release, and adjustments were made accordingly. Environment variables are now available in both the Wrangler CLI and Workers Dashboard.

Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure company, has announced its transition from Intel Xeon Platinum 6162 CPUs to AMD EPYC 7642 processors for its Gen X server design. The decision was made after extensive testing and simulations that showed the AMD chip outperforming Intel's by an average of 25%. This change is expected to increase Cloudflare's capacity, improve performance efficiency, and reduce power consumption. The company believes this move will help it continue to provide reliable and secure internet services for its customers.

The novel coronavirus has accelerated remote work globally, prompting companies to adapt their operations and manage distributed teams effectively. Cloudflare Access offers a solution by replacing traditional VPNs with its network, enabling seamless access to applications from any location or device without lengthy migrations or onboarding sessions. As the trend of remote work continues to grow, Cloudflare Access provides enhanced security, visibility into application usage, and simplified user onboarding for organizations adapting to this new reality.

Cloudflare has designed its network to allow every server in every city to run every service, enabling efficient growth and resource allocation. The company uses standard commodity hardware and manages code execution across its network for optimization. It employs Anycast routing to direct web requests to the nearest data center and Unimog, a custom load balancing system, to distribute traffic across diverse server components. Recent upgrades include Gen X servers powered by AMD EPYC processors, which provide increased performance at lower costs compared to Intel-based hardware. The company continues to explore new technologies and remains optimistic about future advancements in CPU offerings.

Sam Rhea is working on a project to build a simple web app for tracking one-off expenses and submitting them into a budget workbook. To protect his prototype, he plans to use Cloudflare Access with mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication, allowing only requests from his iPhone to connect. He will create a Root CA using Cloudflare's open source toolkit cfssl and generate a client certificate for his device. The client certificates will be placed on the iPhone, ensuring that it is the only device capable of reaching this app. This project demonstrates how organizations can scale up authentication processes to securely deploy devices like IoT sensors or corporate laptops.

Cloudflare has introduced a new feature called Multi-SSO for its Cloudflare Access service, which secures internal applications without the need for a corporate VPN. With this update, users can now integrate LinkedIn and GitHub Teams as login methods alongside their corporate SSO. This makes it easier for organizations to work securely with third parties by allowing external users to log in using popular services like Gmail or GitHub that do not require corporate subscriptions. The Multi-SSO feature also helps standardize identity across multiple providers and onboard contractors seamlessly without paying for additional identity provider licenses. Additionally, it can help integrate mergers and acquisitions without friction and reduce the friction of migrating between identity providers during a transition period.

On February 11, 2020 at 7:23 PM, Connor Peshek introduced the twelfth edition of The Serverlist, a resource covering serverless technology. It includes updates from the serverless space, developer tutorials, discussions with other serverless developers, and information about upcoming meetups and conferences. To receive this content directly in your email, sign up using the provided link while ensuring your privacy is respected.

In the text, Janet Van Huysse emphasizes the importance of diversity in the workplace for better outcomes, innovation, and stronger financial returns. She highlights veterans as a vital part of a diverse workforce due to their unique experiences and perspectives. Veterans are known for their commitment to service, teamwork, focus on mission, ability to adapt, and understanding of morale. They also excel in making diversity work by quickly adapting to new environments and identifying individual strengths within teams. Cloudflare appreciates the value that veterans bring to their company and encourages them to join or transition into the tech industry. The text concludes with a message of gratitude from veteran employees at Cloudflare for being welcomed into the company's culture and team.