Cloudflare Docs
Network Interconnect
Cloudflare Docs
Network Interconnect
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  1. Products
  2. Network Interconnect
  3. Classic CNI

Classic CNI

​​ Types of interconnect

Cloudflare supports two classic CNI connectivity options: direct and partner. The network interconnect is the link between your infrastructure and Cloudflare’s network.

The use case for classic CNI is Magic Transit. If your origins are behind Magic Transit over a classic CNI, then all Cloudflare services that work with public origins will run over the CNI (for example Load Balancer, WAF, Cache, etc).

​​ Classic CNI (Direct)

Direct connections are available at any of our private peering facilities.

Choose a direct connection if you are co-located with a Cloudflare data center. We also recommend a direct connect if:

  • Your link size is 10G or higher
  • You want higher throughput than a partner connection
  • You want to eliminate as many intermediaries from an interconnect as possible

​​ Limitations

Classic CNI (Direct) supports 10G or 100G interfaces.

​​ Classic CNI (Partner)

Cloudflare partners with Equinix, Megaport, Console Connect, PacketFabric, Coresite, Epsilon and Zayo to provide circuits that easily connect you with Cloudflare at any of our interconnection platform locations. For more information about our partner program, see Network Interconnect Partner Program.

Choose a partner connection when you are already using our partner providers or when you want a quick and easy way to onboard a secure cloud experience.

​​ Limitations

Classic CNI (Partner) bandwidth may be limited by the interconnection platform partner.