To eliminate cloud transfer while ensuring that images still appear on your WordPress website, here are some strategies you can consider:
Leverage Cloudflare Cache: You can adjust Cloudflare’s caching settings to reduce the number of requests made to Wasabi. By enabling "Cache Everything" for media files (images, videos, etc.), Cloudflare will serve these files directly from their CDN instead of retrieving them from Wasabi each time. This minimizes transfer from your Wasabi bucket while still displaying images on the WordPress site.
Use Cloudflare's Image Resizing: Cloudflare offers an image optimization service that resizes and caches images at the edge. By enabling this, you can reduce bandwidth usage, as Cloudflare will cache optimized versions of your images without repeatedly pulling them from Wasabi.
Configure Long Expiry Headers: Ensure that Wasabi’s S3 bucket has long cache expiration headers for your media files. This allows Cloudflare to cache the images for an extended period, reducing requests to Wasabi.
Direct Uploads to Wasabi (Bypass WordPress Server): Media Cloud should be able to upload files directly to Wasabi instead of routing through your server. This will save server resources and network transfer. Ensure your Media Cloud settings are optimized for direct-to-S3 uploads, minimizing cloud transfer costs.
Use Signed URLs: If privacy or security is a concern, you could serve images from Wasabi via signed URLs. Cloudflare can cache these for the signed URL's duration, which minimizes cloud requests but ensures images are securely accessed.
Cloudflare Workers (Advanced): You could deploy Cloudflare Workers to handle requests and manage caching intelligently, ensuring that only necessary requests hit Wasabi and that most traffic is served from Cloudflare's edge.
By focusing on caching and reducing the number of pulls from Wasabi to Cloudflare, you can significantly lower cloud transfer costs while maintaining performance.