Cloudflare unveils Workers VPC for enhanced app security

Connectivity cloud company Cloudflare has announced the release of Workers VPC and Workers VPC Private Link, two new offerings designed to help developers build secure, global applications across multiple cloud environments.

The launch aims to remove obstacles created by legacy cloud infrastructure by allowing developers to connect Cloudflare Workers with Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and on-premises networks in a more streamlined and secure way.

"We constantly hear from developers that they want the freedom to build with Cloudflare Workers, but legacy cloud providers make it challenging," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. "Developers deserve to be able to build with whatever tools they want, no matter where their data lives or what infrastructure they rely on."

A VPC is an isolated, secure environment within a public cloud where organisations run servers, databases and applications. However, according to Cloudflare, this model has become a limitation for modern developers who want to use best-in-class cloud services without managing complex networking or facing high data egress fees from legacy providers.

Workers VPC aims to reimagine the traditional VPC for global, region-free compute workloads by enabling Cloudflare resources to be grouped in isolated environments. Within these isolated spaces, only resources that are part of the same Workers VPC can communicate with each other.

Meanwhile, Workers VPC Private Link facilitates secure connectivity between a Workers VPC and an external VPC—whether in a public or private cloud. This effectively allows applications to access resources across environments as if they were part of a single, unified VPC.

"With our expertise across networking, security and privacy, we have all the right pieces in place that make Cloudflare Workers the best place for developers to build and connect the next generation of applications," Prince said.

These two new features are built on top of Cloudflare's existing private networking tools and are expected to become available later this year. The company says they will allow organisations to adopt modern developer platforms while continuing to access critical business data housed in traditional infrastructure.

"Workers VPC is a modern approach to the traditional VPC model – built for a network and compute workloads that are not tied to a single region," the company said in its announcement. "Workers VPC Private Link connects a Workers VPC to an external VPC in a public or private cloud to enable secure connectivity to resources as if they were in a single cloud environment, effectively creating a unified VPC across clouds."

According to Cloudflare, these capabilities will benefit organisations by simplifying the process of building secure, scalable applications that span multiple cloud environments and on-premises networks. Developers can now access both modern and legacy systems without compromising on performance or security.

The company framed the development as a step towards greater flexibility for enterprise teams, who often struggle to modernise their technology stacks while staying compliant with internal and regulatory requirements.

Workers VPC and Workers VPC Private Link are part of Cloudflare's broader push to provide developers with a full suite of cloud-native tools on its Developer Platform. The platform already supports building and deploying applications globally using Cloudflare Workers, a serverless computing environment.

The new tools are currently in development and will be available later this year.