Data Types in the Backblaze B2 Bandwidth Alliance Partnership

Website, Application, Performance Getting Started
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I asked in a separate community topic about acceptable cached data types via the Backblaze B2 Bandwidth Alliance partnership and was told by the Cloudflare team that DNS records not containing any of the record content here can be proxied through Cloudflare.

My thread was auto-closed after my followup question so I’m posting here. I had a look at the above link I was directed to and my Backblaze content does not seem to fall under any of those record content types, so (according to the response I received), other content not falling under any of those unacceptable record content types should be good to go.

In Backblaze’s help docs:

“Many customers have expressed interest in hosting static data for their website, such as multi-hour 8K video, because of the security, reliability, and affordability of Backblaze B2 storage. One solution to ensuring performance and availability is to route requests through a CDN such as Backblaze’s Bandwidth Alliance partner Cloudflare, taking advantage of Cloudflare’s performance and the free data transfer between Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare.”

This post raises an interesting point, as content stored in Backblaze is very often non-HTML (B2 is object storage after all, to be routed through a CDN). Backblaze mentions that video is able to be served under the Bandwidth Alliance in their statement above, and applies to users on any Cloudflare plan, but I know that this is an unacceptable record content type for Cloudflare based on the first link above. Why is Backblaze saying it’s ok to serve 8K video through Cloudflare’s cache?? That sounds like an excessive use case. Unless the Bandwidth Alliance is truly that effective.

On BackBlaze’s post of the partnership, it’s said that “The zero B2 transfer fees are available to all Cloudflare customers using any plan. Customers can store their videos, photos, and other assets in Backblaze B2’s pay-as-you-go cloud storage and serve the site with Cloudflare’s CDN and edge services. Media Content Distribution - The ability to download content from B2 cloud storage to the Cloudflare CDN for zero transfer cost.”

In any case, I of course ensure to adhere to all proper protocols of this partnership agreement, so, to clarify, (pertaining to the above), when Backblaze says that the Bandwidth Alliance partnership with Cloudflare can be used for ‘Media Content Distribution,’ what ‘Media Content’ in a Backblaze B2 bucket is allowed to be served over the Cloudflare CDN? Backblaze quite literally says that even video is applicable to the Bandwidth Alliance, for free, to all Cloudflare customers on any plan. Something about that just doesn’t sound right to me. Anyway, my use case would be audio media content served over HTTP, but I don’t see that mentioned as a forbidden record content type. Would the benefits of the Cloudflare + Bandwidth Alliance partnership apply as it apparently does for ‘videos, photos, and other assets’? Apologies for the long post but all of this can be quite confusing for a green thumb.

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İ asked same question few months ago. İ mean as an end user, it make sense to think “if i can’t proxy non html content, then what does this alliance do?”

But it seems like this “alliance” is one side. Backblaze decided not to charge costs of bandwidth through cloudflare. But there are no agreements between two company and you are still limited to cloudflare tos. Which means you cannot proxy non html content and if you do, cloudflare can disable proxy or even ban you.

That’s how I understand the situation. If I’m wrong please let me know.

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Almost always depends on the egress bandwidth you consume. Unless transmitting out hundreds of TBs/month, I would not expect to be bothered by a Cloudflare employee. They can shut you down if they suspect of abuse though. To be honest, they are not deadly strict on the content type you make flow.

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Which is why it’s important that this is clarified for everyone, so as to ensure we’re all falling in line with the proper terms and don’t run a risk of doing things improperly, even though it appears that things like images, audio, and so on, are applicable to the Bandwidth Alliance, according to those pages from Backblaze and Cloudflare (yet the TOS may contradict this). As mentioned in the first post, Backblaze has also stated that the non-HTML rule does not apply to the Backblaze + Cloudflare partnership and you should be good to go… but it still doesn’t seem right to me… and of course we need this information from the horse’s mouth themselves (Cloudflare), but there has been no answer to that when alioksuz1126 questioned it too. It’s unfortunately not a simple question to explain and requires a complicated and technical formation like in my original post, because there are many variables to it, like you’re saying, 0xbkt.

It’s a slippery slope, because even if it does fall in line with all terms, Cloudflare could still shut you down anyway depending on your usage. Again, why does Backblaze explain ways to do what Cloudflare does not want you to do? I’m not the only one wondering this, plenty are.

This is a situation where Backblaze explains in their help docs and blog posts that it’s all good to store your media content in Backblaze and serve it, “for free,” through the Cloudflare CDN as a Media Content Distribution solution, on “any Cloudflare plan.” They explicitly state as well: “ranging from minified Javascript applications to multi-hour 8K video,” and in the other post they state “videos, photos, and other assets.” That sure sounds like non-HTML content to me!

We all want to obey the policies properly of course, which is why I’m seeking a solid response which avoids any convolution, whether the answer is that our understanding of Bandwidth Alliance is correct, or that a paid solution is required (I see Cloudflare offers such for video via Stream, but how about HTTP-served audio, and so on? Backblaze states that “videos, photos, multi-hour 8K video” can be served through their Bandwidth Alliance partnership with Cloudflare, for free… but I give the benefit of the doubt to Cloudflare, that Backblaze is wrong or wording things poorly. So what is going on here? So confusing.

Many customers have expressed interest in hosting static data for their website (ranging from minified Javascript applications to multi-hour 8K video) because of the security, reliability, and affordability of Backblaze B2 storage. One solution to ensuring performance and availability is to route requests through a CDN such as Backblaze’s Bandwidth Alliance partner Cloudflare, taking advantage of Cloudflare’s performance and the free data transfer between Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare.

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Workers is allowed to serve non-HTML content, just FYI. Check out Supplemental Terms. I don’t think anyone would suspend you for anything if you’re not pushing some unknown egress limits. Currently over 130 TB+/month of raw binary data (from Backblaze B2 + not edge-cached) myself, with Workers though.

Cloudflare Workers is a Service that permits developers to deploy and run encapsulated versions of their proprietary software source code (each a “Workers Script”) on Cloudflare’s edge servers. You may use Cloudflare Workers (whether in conjunction with Cloudflare Workers KV or not) to serve HTML content as well as non-HTML content (e.g., image files, audio files) other than video files.

So, no video files if your service is founded mainly around video serving. The right product is Cloudflare Stream in that case.

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I’m looking to serve audio through HTTP, so that seems right. We aren’t allowed to take advantage of the edge cache with worker-served content? What’s the purpose of routing your Backblaze content through Cloudflare if you cannot take advantage of the caching? For that matter, I may as well connect directly to Backblaze? I don’t require any of the features of Cloudflare Workers, but if we’re allowed to serve audio through that in exchange for paying for cached bandwidth passed through, that would work for my case. Thanks for your help

Edit: Ok, seems that we can use the cache in conjunction with Workers according to this

Since Workers was built atop Cloudflare’s network, since its early days, it was designed to allow developers to interact directly with the Cloudflare cache. The cache can provide ephemeral, colo-local storage, as a convenient way to frequently access static or dynamic content. By allowing developers to write to the cache, Workers provide a way to customize cache behavior on Cloudflare’s CDN.

So since the supplemental terms apply there, can we cache our non-HTML content served through Workers? A bit confused still. Thx

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The problem with non-HTML content is not that you are edge caching it. Simply that it is not allowed. It is trivial for Cloudflare to evict your cache if it’s putting burden on their storage.

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I wouldn’t expect to be pushing enough to cause a burden on Cloudflare, especially considering those such as yourself that are doing over 130TB+/month and are much higher use cases than I anticipate on my end. I’ll have to try to reach out to sales again, as I’m looking for a CDN plan that could grow with me (like most other services offer). Workers allows non-HTML as you said, but I am still unsure if the supplemental terms apply to its combined use with the Cache. I’m willing to pay for my usage of course, so I need a CDN where I can cover costs and be in line with the terms without having to worry about being blocked. If this is unacceptable then I’ll have to keep digging for other solutions. Lastly, could you please tell me what the purpose is of routing your Backblaze content through Cloudflare if you are bypassing the cache? I don’t recognize the benefit there then, thanks again

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