Liquid Web, a $100 million web hosting and cloud services provider, has deployed Corero Network Security’s SmartWall Threat Defense System (TDS) to protect 100Gbps of Internet bandwidth with automatic DDoS mitigation across the multiple Liquid Web data centers.
In the process of researching a DDoS protection solution, the Liquid Web team investigated many options and, after a lengthy evaluation process, opted for what is fast becoming a common approach: a multi-layered DDoS mitigation strategy. The approach involved keeping the company’s existing solution, which had been traditionally used for detection and only reactive mitigation, and augmenting it with the SmartWall TDS.
The in-line deployment of the SmartWall TDS monitors Internet traffic headed toward the Liquid Web network, identifies DDoS activity, and mitigates the attacks in real-time, before they can affect end-users on Liquid Web’s network. This would allow all legitimate user traffic to continue to flow as intended.
Prior to implementing the Corero solution, Liquid Web had experienced several large volumetric attacks that were creating collateral damage in its network environment. With the Corero SmartWall TDS in-line deployment model, the company is very pleased with the real-time mitigation, resulting in “dramatic improvement of service availability.” In terms of metrics, the most critical improvement was a reduction in the number of outage minutes that were associated with large volumetric attacks.
Another benefit of the Corero Network Security solution would be that Liquid Web IT security staff have more time to focus on other key aspects of customer-related security issues, such as virus and malware-related events. Before the Corero deployment, the 24×7 network operations team at Liquid Web needed more staff due to the time spent processing many DDoS security incidents.
“Like all hosting providers and data centers today, Liquid Web has been targeted by DDoS attacks that can negatively affect our core business,” said Joe Oesterlin, CTO of Liquid Web. “Protecting the security of our network and delivering peace of mind to our customers is a critical focus for Liquid Web. It’s one of the reasons we have such an admired brand and earned loyalty from our customers. Investing in the Corero SmartWall solution enables us to deliver on that security promise by significantly reducing the impact of DDoS attacks, while lessening the need for human intervention, which allows us to focus on other technology initiatives.”
