Rita Kozlov

I've been at Cloudflare for over eight years now.

I've been at Cloudflare for over eight years now.

It started seven years ago, or I guess a little bit more than that. But... the, the first product that we announced in the space was workers. And, you know, the, the original, original intent of workers was, okay, we have, um, we have this network. We have, some people use it for CDN, other people use it for WAF and security. We're trying to expose all these services through it.

It started seven years ago, or I guess a little bit more than that. But... the, the first product that we announced in the space was workers. And, you know, the, the original, original intent of workers was, okay, we have, um, we have this network. We have, some people use it for CDN, other people use it for WAF and security. We're trying to expose all these services through it.

And there were kind of two parts to it. One, which is, uh, You know, we looked internally at our own pace of innovation. We're like, wow, we need to be able to go faster. And in parallel, our customers were getting more sophisticated. So they wanted to do, you know, crazier and crazier stuff that page rules just wouldn't cut it for.

And there were kind of two parts to it. One, which is, uh, You know, we looked internally at our own pace of innovation. We're like, wow, we need to be able to go faster. And in parallel, our customers were getting more sophisticated. So they wanted to do, you know, crazier and crazier stuff that page rules just wouldn't cut it for.

Page rules were like, oh, you give me the URL and you can, you know. cache everything on that URL, but people started to want to do things by headers, by country, by cookie, and take all of these complicated actions. So we're like, okay, we need something that will allow people to just write code and deploy it. And we need a platform for ourselves. And so we released workers.

Page rules were like, oh, you give me the URL and you can, you know. cache everything on that URL, but people started to want to do things by headers, by country, by cookie, and take all of these complicated actions. So we're like, okay, we need something that will allow people to just write code and deploy it. And we need a platform for ourselves. And so we released workers.

And if you go back to the announcement blog post for workers, you'll see a bunch of examples that are kind of around, you know, adding headers, caching things, but you quickly realize, oh, wait, I have an origin actually that's running, like if I can write code, In this very serverless way, like, what else can I do? It's crazy. Innovation is crazy in that way.

And if you go back to the announcement blog post for workers, you'll see a bunch of examples that are kind of around, you know, adding headers, caching things, but you quickly realize, oh, wait, I have an origin actually that's running, like if I can write code, In this very serverless way, like, what else can I do? It's crazy. Innovation is crazy in that way.

You come up with something for one thing, and then you realize how many other things are possible. And that was the beginning of the developer platform. And then we're like, okay, well, now if I want to be able to build something a bit more meaningful, I need storage. So then we introduced KV, and that was, you know... pretty limited in what it could do, but it exposed a ton of use cases.

You come up with something for one thing, and then you realize how many other things are possible. And that was the beginning of the developer platform. And then we're like, okay, well, now if I want to be able to build something a bit more meaningful, I need storage. So then we introduced KV, and that was, you know... pretty limited in what it could do, but it exposed a ton of use cases.

And then we're like, okay, what's the next thing that people need to be able to do? Oh, they need all these deployment tools. So, you know, we released Wrangler and worker sites, which was the first iteration of Pages and then became Pages. And then we've continued to add different primitives.

And then we're like, okay, what's the next thing that people need to be able to do? Oh, they need all these deployment tools. So, you know, we released Wrangler and worker sites, which was the first iteration of Pages and then became Pages. And then we've continued to add different primitives.

Yep, to the point where today, you know, people are building full stack applications that I think were well beyond our imagination when we first started working on this.

Yep, to the point where today, you know, people are building full stack applications that I think were well beyond our imagination when we first started working on this.

Yeah, it's interesting. As you were saying this, I was like, wow, actually there are so many different approaches to this. Before we actually embarked on workers, one of the things that we're looking at because that's what so many Fastly users had was VCL. That's a really, really complex, at the end of the day, it stands for varnish configuration language.

Yeah, it's interesting. As you were saying this, I was like, wow, actually there are so many different approaches to this. Before we actually embarked on workers, one of the things that we're looking at because that's what so many Fastly users had was VCL. That's a really, really complex, at the end of the day, it stands for varnish configuration language.

It's a config, it's not Turing complete, but it is very, very expressive. And we saw a few challenges there.

It's a config, it's not Turing complete, but it is very, very expressive. And we saw a few challenges there.