Cloudflare Cuts 100 TB of Memory from 1.1.1.1 DNS Cache
100 TB freed: Cloudflare's DNS redesign shows how efficient code at scale reshapes cloud economics.
Why it matters
Infrastructure optimization that directly impacts compute density and operational cost for a major edge-network provider. The 56% memory reduction per entry and 43% throughput gain demonstrate how algorithmic and systems-level work can defer or eliminate hardware scaling — a pattern practitioners deploying at scale need to track.
The key facts
9 to know100 TB of working-set memory freed across Cloudflare's global fleet
56% reduction in per-entry memory footprint
43% increase in cache insertion throughput
19% reduction in lookup latency
Redesign implemented in Rust
Enables increased cache capacity without additional hardware
100 TB of memory freed across Cloudflare's global fleet
Rust-based infrastructure redesign
Achieved without adding new hardware capacity
Go to the source
InfoQ AI/MLinfoq.com
Publisher excerpt: Cloudflare redesigned the in-memory representation of its Big Pineapple DNS cache, reducing the per-entry footprint by 56% and freeing roughly 100 TB of working-set memory across its fleet. The Rust-based changes also increased cache insertion throughput by 43% and reduced lookup latency by 19%,…