Cloudflare 数据平台于周四获得了一个平淡无奇的新品牌名称——Basin，并正式从测试版（beta）升级为全面可用（general availability）。在这款以浴具为主题的名称下，Cloudflare Pipelines、R2 Data Catalog 和 R2 SQL 分别更名为 Basin Pipelines、Basin Catalog 和 Basin SQL。该公司对卫浴设施的联想，与其那些更具字面意义的产品名称（如 Sandboxes、Workers、Email Services 等）并不十分契合。
Cloudflare Data Platform on Thursday received a bland new brand name, Basin, and promotion from beta status to general availability. Under the tub-themed moniker, Cloudflare Pipelines, R2 Data Catalog, and R2 SQL become Basin Pipelines, Basin Catalog, and Basin SQL respectively. The company's evocation of washroom fixtures doesn't quite align with its stable of more literal product names – Sandboxes, Workers, Email Services, and so on.
不过，鉴于值此 Cloudflare 生日周之际（该活动本身就不符合“天”的概念），对直白命名的期望或许有点过高了。至少 Cloudflare 没有套用其他更糟糕的水体存储隐喻来形容信息集合，比如数据湖（data lake）、泻湖（lagoon）、水坑（puddle）、碗（bowl）或粪坑（cesspool）。“水槽”（Sink）也曾在这个候选名单上，但事实证明 Cloudflare 已经使用了这个词，正如我们下文将看到的那样。
But given that the occasion is Cloudflare Birthday Week, which itself fails to respect the concept of "day," straightforward naming may be expecting too much. At least Cloudflare didn't latch onto any of the worse water storage metaphors for collections of information, like data lake, lagoon, puddle, bowl, or cesspool. "Sink" was also on this list, but it turns out Cloudflare has already deployed the term, as we'll see below.
Cloudflare 首席技术官 Dane Knecht 将更名后的平台宣传为一种更简单的替代方案，省去了为了观测数据而搭建大量硬件的麻烦。“通过 Cloudflare Basin，我们将开发者对 Cloudflare 所期望的无服务器模型引入了分析领域：无需管理集群、无需进行不必要的数据流动，并且通过开放标准让客户掌控自己的数据，”他表示。
Cloudflare CTO Dane Knecht pitched the renamed platform as an easier alternative to standing up a bunch of hardware for observing data. "With Cloudflare Basin, we are bringing the same serverless model that developers expect from Cloudflare to analytics: no clusters to manage, no unnecessary data movement, and open standards that keep customers in control of their data," he said.
Basin 的吸引力在于没有供应商锁定——因为它基于 Apache Iceberg——且没有出站流量费（egress fees），因此数据可以在不同的云区域之间自由流动。来自超大规模云服务商（如 Amazon S3、Google Cloud Storage 和 Azure Blob Storage）的同类服务则会征收出站流量费。Cloudflare Basin 旨在吸引企业将数据存储在 R2 Data Catalog 中，然后使用 Basin SQL 或 DuckDB、PyIceberg、Snowflake、Spark、StarRocks 或 Trino 等各种外部查询引擎对其进行处理。这正是 Cloudflare 在其预设客户引言清单中所重点强调的内容。
Basin's appeal is based on lack of lock-in – because it relies on Apache Iceberg – and lack of egress fees, so data can move freely across cloud regions. Rival services from hyperscalers (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob Storage) impose egress fees. Cloudflare Basin represents an invitation for companies to store data in R2 Data Catalog and then process it with Basin SQL or any of various external query engines like DuckDB, PyIceberg, Snowflake, Spark, StarRocks, or Trino. And that's what Cloudflare is highlighting in its menu of canned customer quotes.
以下是来自 Bobsled 平台负责人的 Julien Grobbelaar 的介绍：“Basin 允许我们开发数据产品，这些产品可以在所有主要的数据和人工智能平台上使用；由于无需支付任何数据传输费用（即‘出站费用’），因此这些产品的可靠性达到了生产级标准，同时成本也大幅降低。” Cloudflare 也声称：“使用来自不同云服务、平台或地区的数据工具进行数据查询时，不会产生任何数据传输费用。”但实际上，费用依然存在。
Here's Julien Grobbelaar, head of platform at Bobsled: "Basin allows us to build data products that can be made accessible in any region of every major data and AI platform, all at production-grade reliability and a fraction of the cost thanks to zero egress fees." Cloudflare claims as much: "Querying data using tools from different clouds, platforms, or regions carries no transfer fees." And yet there are fees.
Cloudflare 解释道：“直接从 R2 系统中导出数据（无论是通过 Workers API、S3 API 还是 r2.dev 域名）都不会产生数据传输费用，因此是免费的。但如果你将其他需要计费的服务连接到 R2 的数据桶上，那么这些服务可能会向你收取费用。” 如果使用 Basin Pipelines 将流式数据加载到 R2 中的 Apache Iceberg 或 Parquet 数据格式中，Cloudflare 会对超出免费使用量的数据传输费用进行收费；Cloudflare 将这种收费方式称为“数据输出（出站）费用”。
As Cloudflare explains, "Egressing directly from R2, including via the Workers API, S3 API, and r2.dev domains does not incur data transfer (egress) charges and is free. If you connect other metered services to an R2 bucket, you may be charged by those services." If Basin Pipelines is used to load streaming data into Apache Iceberg or Parquet in R2, Cloudflare charges for delivering data to those sinks after the included allowance. Cloudflare labels this pricing dimension "Sinks (egress)."
在每个数据湖、数据存储池或数据存储系统的底部，都存在一个用于收取费用的机制（即“费用收取点”）。
At the bottom of every data lake, sink, pool, or basin, there's a drain for cash. ®