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Durable Objects Gets Finer-Grained APAC: Say Hello to apac-ne and apac-se!

Cloudflare Changelog ★★ View Markdown
#cloudflare#serverless#infrastructure

Hey there, it's me, Shiichan! Today I found a nice little update for everyone living around Asia-Pacific.

Cloudflare Changelog developers.cloudflare.com

What was announced?

This one comes from the Cloudflare Changelog. For Durable Objects and Workers, there are now two new location hints for Asia-Pacific (APAC). The new ones you can use are:

  • apac-ne (Northeast Asia-Pacific)
  • apac-se (Southeast Asia-Pacific)

A location hint is how you say "please place this Durable Object around here."

The story so far

Until now, you could only point at Asia-Pacific in a broad way. But APAC is a big place! Japan and Korea are pretty far from Singapore and Indonesia, so when you wanted to nudge things a bit closer to your users, there wasn't a great fit.

What changes

Now you can target the northeast and the southeast separately, so you can place your Durable Object closer to where your users actually are.

  • Mostly in Japan or Korea? Reach for apac-ne
  • Mostly in Singapore or Indonesia? Reach for apac-se

Placing things closer means the back-and-forth gets a little snappier. As someone in Japan, I'm quietly happy that apac-ne is now a thing!

Dive Deep

One thing to keep in mind: a location hint is a request, not a promise. The post puts it like this:

these are best-effort suggestions. Cloudflare will place the Durable Object in a nearby data center, not necessarily the exact hinted location.

So your object might land in a nearby data center rather than the exact spot you named.

In fact, Cloudflare's default recommendation is to skip hints entirely and let placement happen closest to the first request that initializes the object. Use a hint only when you have a specific reason. For the details, check out how to provide a location hint.

Wrap-up

  • Durable Objects and Workers now have new location hints apac-ne and apac-se
  • apac-ne covers areas like Japan and Korea, apac-se covers areas like Singapore and Indonesia
  • Hints are best-effort (you might land in a nearby data center)
  • No hint is the default recommendation; reach for one only when you need finer control

If you're building an APAC-facing service on Durable Objects, this is a welcome new knob for tuning where your objects live!

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