We just turned up Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg - Cloudflare’s 143rd, 144th, and 145th data centers. This brings our Canadian presence to six cities, joining Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. I grew up just outside of Saskatoon, so I couldn’t be happier that Cloudflare’s network has expanded to the Canadian Prairies. My parents still live there and I just booked flights to go and visit them this summer. When I tell people that I grew up in Saskatchewan, most people don’t know a lot about the region, so I wanted to share some of my favorite things about the region, starting from west to east:
Calgary was home to the 1988 Winter Olympics and is a 90 minute drive from Banff, an incredible National Park that is absolutely worth visiting. Calgary has grown quickly over the last twenty years because of all the natural resources, including oil and gas. They host a famous rodeo, Calgary Stampede, for 10 days every summer. Definitely something to add to your bucket list. With Cloudflare’s new deployment in Calgary, we’ll make the Internet even faster for visitors. Hello Calgary!
About 1 million people live in the province of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon is the largest city, while Regina is the capital of the province. Saskatoon is an under the radar city which is gaining steam. Vogue wrote it up in late 2016 as a place to visit. There is a brand new art museum that opened called the Remai Modern. Drive two hours north and you’ll find amazing lakes, and northern lights. My favorite lake is Waskesiu but you can’t go wrong with any of them. (Fun fact - there are more lakes than roads in Saskatchewan).
Winnipeg is the city I have been to the least out of the three - mainly because it was a really far drive from where I grew up. Winnipeg is considered the “gateway to the west” and so an important transportation and railway hub. It’s a cultural center in Canada and home to many museums, including the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. One thing that always struck me about Winnipeg is that it is home to one of the windiest corners in North America - Portage + Main. While you can’t technically measure climate by street corner (yet), I’m pretty sure it is the windiest corner I have ever stood on.
Photo by Johny Goerend / Unsplash
The Canadian prairies are gorgeous, and home to some of the kindest people you will meet. I am proud that we are making the Internet faster, safer and more reliable for folks in that region.
Cloudflare is a participant at Calgary Internet Exchange (YYCIX), Saskatoon Internet Exchange (YXEIX) and Manitoba Internet Exchange (MBIX). We are big fans of the many volunteers who have worked hard to build these interconnection points, and foster an ecosystem around them. While all three cities currently have fairly limited local interconnection, Cloudflare is encouraging more ISPs to not just peer traffic in Canada (instead of the US), but interconnect across the Prairies as well.
The end of March is nearing and our team is working hard to hit our goal of 150 cities. Where to next?
The Cloudflare Global Anycast Network
This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.