Name: Building the foundation for Coffee Shop Networking
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T06:16:09.869Z
Duration: 32 min 52 s
Description: Building the foundation for Coffee Shop Networking

Transcript for "Building the foundation for Coffee Shop Networking": Hi. Good afternoon. Good morning. And welcome to our live webinar. My name is Eric Zhou from Cloudflare marketing team. In today's webinar, we will cover a topic, building a foundation for coffee shop networking. So before we get started, here are a quick housekeeping note. So on the on the right side of your screen, you will see a q and a box. Please feel free to submit any questions there at any time during the session. Our speaker will address your questions at the end of the webinar. Now please join me welcoming our speaker, Li Junghao, technical validations. engineer at the Cloudflare. Thank you again for joining us. Let's get started. Over to you, Junhao. So good morning, guys, or good afternoon, and good evening from the to the participant that is from different time zone. Right. Once again, thanks for joining our webinar today. So before we start, let me have a very quick self introductions. So my name is Jun Hao, and I'm the digital solutions engineer from Cloudflare. Right. So today, we are going to talk about building the foundations for coffee shop networkings. Right? So this topic is actually interesting because coffee shop networking is not about the products or tools, but it is about the mindset and the philosophy that you can adopt when people work from anywhere on any network. Right? So most of us today have connected to a Wi Fi in a cafe without thinking much about what is happening behind the scenes. But this network is actually worked very differently from our office network, and that creates a new challenge for us today. So in this session, we'll walk through what is happening when you connect to a coffee shop Wi Fi and why this difference matter and what is the practical steps that an organizations can take to handle them safely and simply. Alright? So before we deep dive into it, so let me first discuss about what is actually a coffee shop networking. Right? So coffee shop networking is a way of describing a modern approach to connecting users, devices, and applications no matter where they are. It is very different from the traditional network models, which assume that users and applications are sitting in a local office or in ad another word means it is sitting in a network that is fully controlled by your company. So the idea of coffee shop networking really become clear during the pandemic. Right? During at that time, many organizations discover something important, which is their office is empty, Their desk is unused, and even their Internet bandwidth is not being fully utilized even though companies still have to pay for it. Right? So in a simple words means the network was built around a physical locations, but then the people are no longer there. Right? So that experience actually changed how an organization is thinking about network. Instead of designing network around buildings, coffee shop networking is about designing networks around people wherever they happen to work. Right? So let's start with a simple question here. So if people are now allowed to work from anywhere, so do they really still need to be assigned with a fixed desk in their office, Or does the office work more like a hotel? You come in, you check-in for the day, you use a desk when you need it, and you leave it when you're done. So in a hybrid world, you rarely have 100% of your employees in the office at the same time. So managing office desk like a hotel room just make more sense. Right? So if we shift that thinking to networking, the same idea applies. So instead of assuming users are sitting inside a trusted office network, the reality is that many of them are working from coffee shops or even some coworking spaces. And most of us already know that this experience well. You walk into a coffee shop, you open your laptop, you connect to the Wi Fi, and then you start working. It's just simple and frictionless. So coffee shop networking is about bring bringing that same ease and simplicity to corporate networking, but without giving up security. So unlike real coffee shop Wi Fi, which your organizations cannot control the your traffics, coffee shop networking is fully managed. Your IT team can control access. Your can control your device. They can apply security policies on your PC regardless on where their employees is working. So this approach also makes it much more easier to connect branch networking. You can securely connect your HQ, your branch office, your home network, and even the coffee shops by using the same model. So the end result is just simple. Employees and contractors can work securely from anywhere while the organizations can still keep its data, their intellectual properties to keep them protected. Right? So we have talked so many things about coffee shop networking, but why the traditional enterprise networking isn't work anymore? So the challenges here is it is extremely complex and in inflexible. So, traditionally, the enterprise networking, it was designed around a simple idea. There's a trusted zone and there's an untrusted zone. And it is separate by the firewall, the on premise firewall. The untrusted zone by PIN is the zone that is outside of our corporate network, while the trusted zone is the protected zone, the DMZAC zone, your LAN zone, etcetera. But we've if we look at how people actually work today, you will found that this model starts to break down. Why? This most users now is no longer sitting inside the office network. They are working from home. They are working from cafe or at or they are even on the road. So at the same time, many of the applications they use like SaaS services also live outside the firewalls. So this raises a sim a very important questions, which is since all the users and applications are now resides outside of the trusted zone, So what role does that trusted zone really play in? Right. And the problem now is building and maintaining a trusted network zone is also not simple. IT team have to design, deploy, and operate them it themselves. So over time, this returns into a complicated costly environment that is very hard to manage and even harder to scale. So and that complexity is exactly what slows an organization's down. Right? So this slides we're showing what the traditional network rack usually looks like. Right? So over time, IT team is building a stacks of different devices like you can see in the network rack here. And each one of the boxes is actually having a specific job. You will typically see there's a routers to route traffics. There's a switches to connect the devices. You can also see firewall to control access. You can also see there's a RAN optimizer to improve performance or even though there's a wireless controller to manage Wi Fi. And on top of that, there's also a separate tools for monitoring that can be your storage inside of server racks. And even though sometimes your CCTV system or your security cameras or other systems are all sitting inside the same server rack. And the key point is that each function usually requires its own pieces of hardware and often from different vendors. This means that more boxes to install, configure, page, and maintain. So as the network grows, this rack will keeps getting taller, or you even need to buy a new server rack just to install more boxes. Alright? So it starts as a clean setup and slowly turns into a complex server stacks that is expensive to run and difficult to manage. And every new requirement usually meet means adding another box to the rack. Right? So as earlier, we have looked we have take a look on the traditional level rack. Now let's look at what happened when we remove that complexity. Right? So imagine that the same employee starting their day, they open their laptop and they connect from what wherever they are. It could be their home. It could be their branch office. It could be their cafe. They don't even need to think about the VPN, their firewall, their network path. They just connect, and they do their daily job. And behind the scenes, the traffic, instead of flowing back to their on premise hardware, everything will now just go through Cloudflare global network. So the user's device connects securely to Cloudflare where access is checked based on their identity and their device posture, and there is no assumptions of trust. There's no longer a trusted zone just because someone is inside a network. And from there, Cloudflare will route the traffic to the correct place. There might be a SaaS applications on the public Internet, or it might be an internal application running in a private cloud or data centers. So those system don't need to be exposed or protected by inbound firewall anymore. They connect outward to Cloudflare using secure tunnels, and Cloudflare will brokers the connections. And now we zoom out to the branches. Instead of deploying routers, firewalls, and private circuits at every locations, the branches now can connect through Cloudflare using the Internet, and then the traffic is auto optimized, secure, and managed centrally without needed without the need to add more hardware. What this means is that many of the function that used to require a separate box in a server rack are now deliver as a single cloud based platform. So instead of moving your network by stacking more equipment, you can simplify it by shifting the connectivity and security to the edge, which is nearer to the users and applications. So what does this coffee shop network brings to you? So what's the benefit of it? So first, it simplifies the connectivity. So with a coffee shop mindset, it doesn't matter whether your application is in the public cloud or it is in your own data center or it is delivered as a SaaS. The network flows the same way to all of them, and users don't need to know where the things live. Everything just works no matter where they are connecting from. And the second thing is it is more secure. The old trusted and untrusted zone that this kind of model assumes that once you are inside the office network, you are trusted. But today, it doesn't really work anymore. The trust can already inside the network, and the company data is spread across the cloud and SaaS platform, not sitting in a single parameter. So cloud so coffee shop networking adopts a zero trust approach where access is checked every time, and this helps you to control the threats and protect your resource. And finally, it lower downs your cost. Why? Because this kind of coffee shop model, it doesn't rely on specific hardware or custom level design, and organizations can reduce their infrastructure spend and their operational overhead. You don't need to keep adding boxes and maintaining your server racks and while keep your users connected. So in overall, CoffeeShark networking is about making connectivity simpler, security stronger, and operation more cost effective. Right. So now let's look at what are the typical use case that coffee shop networking is actually used in the real world. Right? So one of the common use case is connecting branch offices and satellite campus. So when an office is far from its HQ, setting up traditional networking can take time and cost a lot. And think about the human the the manpower you have to spend on a branch. So with coffee we have a coffee shop networking model, this location can come online quickly using standard Internet access without waiting for complex network builds. K? So another use case is when you are connecting a franchise locations. So think about retail stores, like retail store like Starbucks or in Malaysia, there's a Zooskoffee. For for this kind of business that is open they opens new location regularly. Coffee shop networking makes it easily to onboard new stores fast and connect them securely while keeping the network design consistent across all locations. And finally, is a very effective for supporting remote and hybrid work. Because your employer and your employee don't need to be in the office access corporate system, whether they are at home, in a cafe, or traveling. They can just connect safely with a minimal setup on their device. It just work wherever they are. Right? So after we have we have talked so many about the benefits and the use case of coffee shop networking, now let's talk about the path to coffee shop networking. So this is important because coffee shop networking isn't something you switch on overnight. It's something that you have to build step by step. Right? So tradition the step one is we have to set the user up with we have to set up the user access with the PNA. So, traditionally, once someone was on the corporate network, they were trusted. But today, the assumption doesn't hold anymore. And users might might be at home in a in a cafe. So instead of asking where some where someone is, you can start by asking who they are. So that's where Jackie and I come in. So every users is authenticated. Every request is verified, and access is granted to only what the users actually need. In some cases, users don't even need to have a client. They can securely access application directly through their browsers. And the key idea here is trust is never assumed. It it is always earned. So after step one, we already know that who the user is, what they are allowed to access. And the next question is, how does the traffic move across the network? In a traditional setup, this usually means VPN and private links, and there's and a loss of network cover in every office. So the offices, the traffic is often sent back to the central locations before going to the Internet or the clouds. This makes net network slow, expensive, and very hard to scale. So with network as a service in Cloudflare, another name is Magic WAN. We changed this approach. The branches are connected using lightweight appliance or software connectors, and once they are online, they can connect directly to the Cloudflare network. There's no need for complex routing or long setup times. So from there, traffic can securely reach private cloud environment and data centers using tunnels that are or even direct connections. And everything in the tunnel is encrypted, and security rules are applied consistently over all locations. And the big idea here is simplicity. Networking become easier to deploy, easier to manage, and easier to scale. When you open a new branch or you add a new location, you don't need to redesign the network, and you just connect it. So step two is about modernizing how your network works using the Internet, adding built in security, and making connectivity flexible enough to support a coffee shop way of working. Alright. Okay. Now let's move to step three, which is a very critical steps. So the the the step three is address cloud and web access. So at this stage, we have verified the users in step one, and we have modernized the network in step two. But there's another big reality we need to face, which is most application today, they are not sitting inside a data center anymore. They they are in the public cloud platforms. They can be the SaaS applications like Microsoft or Salesforce. And users that are constantly browsing the Internet as part of their daily work. So the question here in step three becomes, how do we secure access to the cloud applications and the public web? So this is where our Cloudflare SWG secure web gateway comes in. So instead of relying the firewall inside the office, traffic is now inspected on the cloud, and every request can be checked whether it is going to SaaS application, a website, or a cloud workload. So policies are applied based on their the user's identity, their device posture, and even their risk level, not solely based on the physical locations like your on premise firewall. That means that the users, if they are today, they are working from a coffee shop, they can get the same level of protections easily. And this step is very important because today's risk is not just about people getting into your network. It is also about users assessing a risky website. They're downloading malwares, and they are exposing their sensitive data. And so step three here is to ensure whenever your users go online, securities follows them. Right? So now we have arrived us to step four. So step four here is to achieve coffee shop networking and reduce your on premise infrastructures. Right? This is the also an important steps. And coffee shop networking means your users can work from anywhere, and the experience feels simple. They open their laptop, and they connect to the Internet. They start working securely. But behind that simplicity is something that very powerful because security and networking are delivered from the cloud. You no no longer need large amounts of hardware sitting in the office or data centers. You didn't you don't need a stacks of firewalls. You don't need a stacks of VPN device. You don't need a stacks of access control to verify your users. You don't need to backhaul your traffic to a central sites before they go through Internet. So instead, policies are managed centrally and enforced globally. This allows organizations to reduce or even eliminate the on premise infrastructures. So that means that at the end of these steps, it is you have lesser hardware to maintain, you've got the work operational cost, and a faster deployment when opening a new branch or supporting remote steps. It also improve digital experience where user get direct and optimize access to the apps they need. So step four is the result of doing step one to step three properly. You simplify your infrastructures, you improve your securities, you reduce your cost, and you enable the true flexibility to the business. And that is what means to achieve a coffee shop networking. Alright. So I believe I have reached the end of my presentations. So if there's can post your questions at the q and a there if there's any. Hi. Hi, Lee Joong. I see some questions in the list. Maybe we can I see we have sat after them, but maybe you can starting some of them on the test answer publicly? So maybe the first one is any best practice recommendation? Sorry? The question the first question, any best practice recommendation? I believe this answer. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the best practice is actually is starting with the identity. We have to identify who our user is instead of starting from the network. Mhmm. So and if let's say that if there is any best practice to, like if the question is from the perspective when is there any best practice for us to, like, deploy one point one by one? Yes. There is a white paper in our websites, but I didn't prepare today. But there's a, yeah, there's a steps of of guiding you to achieve this official networking models one by one. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. If you are interested, reach out to us. I will try to send you the white paper. LiJong, think the next question from Michael talk about what other overheads we are working with media and currently have higher throughput. Is this still a good fit? You're working with media. Are the overheads? They're working with me then, currently. For this one, I think we have to, like, analyze the overall the overall network environment first to in order for me to give a good solutions. Right? So maybe this one, we'll get in touch after that to know more about what is what is their current environment, what's their business need, what's their business plan point so be so only I can answer this. Yeah. Okay. Michael, Mhmm. if you still want to in touch, send us note. And I'll give you my email so I can forward it to Lee Jones to give you a reply on this one. Thank you, Michael, for your question. Next question is from Nathan. Talk about what is SASE and how does it relate to coffee shop networking. Right. What is the oh, what is SASE and how does it relate it to Confidential Networking? Yep. Right. SASE is a model that integrates flexibles and cloud friendly cloud friendly network networking with built in security, while coffee shop networking is an is essentially a deployment for SASE model and simplifying the model modern network architectures by combining these features these functions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dijon. So you can look at the Q and A. I think our teammates have already run through the most questions. Any anything you wanna add to that? Right. Okay. If not, so I got a question. Say, can we share the on demand link for this webinar? So in twenty four hours, tomorrow same time tomorrow, we'll send you email to with a link to rewatching the webinar again. And if you have any questions, and feel free to reach out to us. Li Jo, any last word you wanna say before we wrap up this webinar? What's the last word I wanted to say? To achieve this model is actually not a one day job. It's about you achieve this one by by putting effort every day, steps by steps, and in a organized way. So, yeah, can start planning today and implement tomorrow, and we'll see the results in the futures. Okay. Hold on. I've got a so maybe we're waiting. So if you have any last question, please submit. Otherwise, we're going to wrap up. So if you are Cloudflare customers and you want to know more detail about coffee shop, please reach out to your Cloudflare representative. If you want to have further conversation or any questions you wanna ask, just sending us sending me email. I'm putting my email in a inbox in a chat. So thank you for your time, and thank you, Lee Jeong, for today's presentation. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Have a good one. Bye bye.