Cloudflare is expanding its data platform with Cloudflare Basin, a new serverless data platform designed to make it easier and more affordable for developers and enterprises to build applications around their own data.
Built on Apache Iceberg and Cloudflare R2, Basin provides tools for ingesting, storing, cataloging, and querying analytical data while keeping it in an open format that can be accessed by compatible analytics and AI tools. The platform is aimed at simplifying a data stack that can otherwise require dedicated infrastructure, multiple services, and a data engineering team to maintain. Instead of provisioning servers and moving data between separate systems, Basin runs these workloads on Cloudflare’s network on demand.
One of its key features is the use of Apache Iceberg as the underlying data format. Because Iceberg is an open industry standard, customers can work with compatible tools without having to convert or copy their data into a proprietary format. This is intended to reduce vendor lock-in while giving teams more flexibility over how their data is analyzed. Basin also removes the need to manage dedicated servers for data ingestion and analysis. Developers can ingest, organize, and query data without having to size infrastructure ahead of demand.
Another major part of the platform is its approach to data movement. Cloudflare says querying data across different clouds, platforms, or regions does not incur data transfer fees, potentially reducing one of the ongoing costs associated with operating distributed data architectures.
