Edge platform
Cloudflare set-up and consulting
Cloudflare sits between your visitors and your site. Done well, pages arrive faster, attacks are stopped before they reach you, and a failure behind it is less visible. We set it up, tune it to your traffic, and keep its rules sensible.
- 1,200+ clients helped
- Building since 2010
- 15 services, one team
- 50+ technologies
At a glance
What it is
Cloudflare is a network that sits in front of your website. It serves pages from servers close to the visitor, filters out attacks, and manages your domain's addresses.
Problems it solves
Sites are slow for distant visitors, exposed to attacks and bad traffic, and fragile when something in the domain set-up goes wrong.
Who it suits
Owners and technical teams of websites, stores, and applications that need better speed, availability, and protection.
How to choose
Put Cloudflare in front of a site that needs speed and protection, and tune it to your traffic. Do not rely on its defaults for anything sensitive, and keep your own backups and access controls.
What it means
A shield and a shortcut in one
A website normally answers every visitor from one place. A visitor on the far side of the world waits for the round trip, and every attacker, scraper, and broken bot reaches the same server as real customers.
Cloudflare changes that. It holds copies of your static content in many places, answers many requests itself, and screens the rest. Real visitors get faster pages, and your server sees less traffic, and less of the harmful kind.
It also manages the domain's addresses, which is where many outages begin. A mistake in one record can take a site offline, so moving this to a well-run service with a record of changes is itself a gain.
Settings
The settings that matter most
| Feature | What it does | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Caching | Serves stored copies of pages and files close to visitors. | Dynamic and logged-in pages must not be cached by mistake. |
| Firewall rules | Blocks or challenges traffic by country, address, and request pattern. | Too strict a rule blocks real customers, so rules need monitoring. |
| Attack and bot protection | Absorbs floods of traffic and filters automated abuse. | Tune it to your traffic, or it will block useful bots such as search crawlers. |
| DNS | Manages the domain's addresses with change history. | Record changes can break mail and verification, so they are planned. |
| Edge code | Runs small programs near visitors for redirects, headers, and light logic. | Keep it small. Heavy logic belongs on your own servers. |
Worth knowing
What Cloudflare will not fix
An edge network improves delivery and filtering. It does not repair a site that is slow or unsafe at the source.
- Slow database queries and heavy application code
- Outdated plugins and unpatched software on your own server
- Weak passwords and over-broad access for staff
- Missing backups
How we do it
Putting Cloudflare in front of a live site
Review the site and its traffic
We check what the site serves, how it is hosted, and what the traffic looks like, including legitimate bots.
What it produces
- Traffic review
- Risk list
Plan the move
We copy the domain's records, plan the switch time, and prepare a way back.
What it produces
- DNS plan
- Rollback plan
Switch and verify
The site is switched over, mail, forms, and sign-in are tested, and speed is compared with before.
What it produces
- Test log
- Speed comparison
Tune and watch
Caching and rules are adjusted from real data, and alerts tell us when something needs attention.
What it produces
- Tuned rules
- Alerts
What DECHY can do
Working with Cloudflare
Set up
- Moving DNS safely, with mail and verification records preserved.
- Secure connections end to end.
Speed up
- Caching rules suited to your pages.
- Image and file delivery tuned for phones.
Protect
- Firewall and bot rules based on your real traffic.
- Rate limits on sign-in and forms.
Extend
- Redirects, security headers, and light logic at the edge.
- Monitoring and alerts for rule changes and attacks.
Common questions
Questions about Cloudflare
Will Cloudflare make our site faster?
Usually, for visitors far from your server and for pages that can be cached. It does little for slow application code, which needs fixing at the source.
Is it enough to protect us from attacks?
It stops a great deal, especially floods and automated abuse. It is one layer. Keep your software updated, back up, and control access.
Will switching break our email?
Not if the records are copied and checked first. We plan the move so mail and verification records are preserved.
Can it block the search crawlers we want?
Poorly tuned rules can. We allow the crawlers you want and test the result.
Have a different question?
Tell us what you are weighing up and we will answer it plainly.
Ask a questionAlready a client? Email support@dechytech.com
Technical depth
How we build with Cloudflare
The detail a technical reviewer will ask about: caching, security, DNS and mail, and limits.
- Static assets are cached with long lifetimes and versioned names, and HTML is cached only where it is safe.
- Cache rules respect cookies and headers, so personalized pages are never shared between users.
- Traffic between visitors, Cloudflare, and your server is encrypted, and your server accepts connections only from Cloudflare where that is appropriate.
- Rules are built in stages, observed in log mode first, and then enforced.
Records are kept in code where possible, with change review. Mail authentication records are checked before and after every change.
An edge network does not replace patching, backups, or access control on your own systems. We treat it as one layer in a wider security approach.
Tell us about the site and what worries you
Describe the site, its traffic, and any slowness or attacks. We will review the set-up and recommend what to switch on and how to tune it.