Endpoint steering policies

Endpoint steering customizes how each pool distributes requests to its associated endpoints.

These distributions are a combination of two properties:

• The endpoint steering policy chosen for your pool.
• The weights assigned to each endpoint.

Note

If an endpoint becomes unhealthy, your pool will also re-balance traffic according to its endpoint steering policy.

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Policies

When you create a pool, you have to choose an option for Endpoint Steering.

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Weights

The weight assigned to an endpoint controls the percentage of pool traffic sent to that endpoint. By default, all endpoints within a pool have a weight of 1.

If you leave each endpoint with the default setting and choose a Random endpoint steering policy, each endpoint will receive the same percentage of traffic. If you use a Hash policy, that percentage will vary based on the IP distribution of your requests.

Customize weights

To customize weights when you create or edit a pool, set the Weight to a number between 0 and 1 (expressed in increments of .01). Cloudflare will then send traffic to that pool based on a combination of your endpoint steering policy and the following formula.

% of traffic to endpoint = endpoint weight ÷ sum of all weights in the pool

Endpoint weight example

Here’s an example applying weights to three endpoints with a Random endpoint steering policy:

• Weights: Endpoint A = 0.25; Endpoint B = 0.25; Endpoint C = 0.50
• When all endpoints are healthy, each endpoint will receive the following proportion of total traffic: A = 25%; B = 25%; C = 50%.
• When one endpoint is unhealthy (such as endpoint C), each healthy endpoint will receive the following proportion of total traffic: A = 50%; B=50%.

A significant amount of traffic is required for the distribution to converge on the expected values.

An endpoint with a weight of 0 should not receive any traffic sent to that pool (though the endpoint will still receive health monitor requests).

You can also see this value in the Percent field when creating or editing a pool in the dashboard.

Note:

If an endpoint is used in multiple pools and has multiple weights assigned, the total traffic sent to that pool will differ from the percentage specified in each individual pool.

Limitations

If you choose Hash for your Endpoint Steering or enable session affinity, these options can affect traffic distribution.

Additionally, session affinity takes precedence over any selected weight or endpoint steering policy.

When using DNS-only load balancing, DNS resolvers may cache resolved IPs for clients and affect traffic distribution.