October 2012 Summaries

On October 31, 2012, Hurricane Sandy impacted several data centers across the United States, including those of CloudFlare in Newark, NJ (EWR) and Ashburn, VA (IAD). Despite the storm's severity, CloudFlare's network remained operational throughout due to its design for disaster resilience. The EWR facility experienced a brief generator failure but was able to switch back to grid power when it became available. Other data centers and networks faced issues during the hurricane, with some experiencing outages that affected their customers' websites. CloudFlare's Always Online functionality ensured that static versions of impacted sites were served until their origin servers were restored. Traffic to EWR and IAD data centers dropped less than 1% compared to a regular Monday night, possibly due to increased surfing among those with internet access during the storm.

The text discusses DNS Amplification Attacks, which are a way for attackers to magnify the amount of bandwidth they can target at a potential victim. These attacks have become increasingly common as network operators have failed to close open resolvers on their networks. One persistent attacker has been sending at least 20Gbps twenty-four hours a day against one of CloudFlare's customers, but the nature of CloudFlare's network means that the attack does not cause harm or add to bandwidth costs. The text also provides information on how to limit attackers abusing networks and encourages network operators to close open resolvers to prevent further attacks.

CloudFlare has announced several improvements to enhance the performance of SSL, aiming to make it a no-brainer decision for websites to secure their sites with SSL. One significant performance hit to SSL is the OCSP/CRL check, which makes up 30% or more of HTTPS overhead. To speed up OCSP/CRL performance, CloudFlare has enabled OCSP Stapling network-wide, eliminating this performance tax on HTTP connections. The OCSP/CRL check is a necessary process to support secure web connections over HTTPS and involves revoking certificates if they are compromised or stolen before expiration. However, the check adds significant overhead, with 30% of SSL slowness attributed to it. By stapling the OCSP response to the initial SSL handshake, CloudFlare has significantly improved SSL performance for its customers.

On October 28, 2012, a large hurricane named Sandy was approaching the Eastern United States, with landfall expected around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two of CloudFlare's data centers, Ashburn, VA and Newark, NJ, were likely to be impacted by high winds and rain from the hurricane. To ensure service continuity, vendors running these buildings had taken several precautions such as testing backup generators, securing fuel supplies, arranging staff availability, and preparing emergency supplies. CloudFlare's network design also ensured no single points of failure, allowing traffic to fail over automatically to the next closest data center in case of connectivity loss. The company had experience with hurricanes like Irene a year prior and was closely monitoring Sandy's impact on their facilities.

The Pumpkin Lady and her husband run the seasonal website Pumpkinlady.com, offering pumpkin carving stencils and accessories for Halloween. They have been in business for 15 years and have gained popularity through their unique designs and exceptional customer service. Jack Berberette, aka "The Pumpkin Hubby," discusses the challenges of running a seasonal website, including competition and search engine ranking issues. He also shares tips on optimizing SEO and preparing a high-volume, seasonal Wordpress site for peak performance during the holiday season. Additionally, he emphasizes the importance of providing an excellent customer experience to stand out in the competitive market. Lastly, Berberette highly recommends using CloudFlare for its performance and security enhancements.

On October 16, 2012, CloudFlare was named the Most Innovative Internet & Networking Company of 2012 by the Wall Street Journal for the second consecutive year. The company launched three key technologies in the previous year: Rocket Loader, Railgun, and Automatic IPv6 Gateway. Rocket Loader improves page load times by fetching multiple third-party objects through a single connection to CloudFlare's network. Railgun enhances caching for dynamic content, achieving a 99.6% compression ratio when sending data to the network. The Automatic IPv6 Gateway allows websites to be available on both IPv4 and IPv6 networks without requiring any changes to their infrastructure. These innovations have contributed to building a faster, safer, and smarter web.

On October 5th, 2012, CloudFlare announced its partnership with StopBadware to enhance their collaboration in making the internet a safer place. The two organizations have been working together since before CloudFlare's founding, and this formalized cooperation will involve participation in forums, events, and educational programs. As part of the partnership, CloudFlare is providing its Business-level service to stopbadware.org and badwarebusters.org. This collaboration aims to further protect websites worldwide from viruses, spyware, scareware, and other malicious software.

On October 4, 2012, Parallels announced a partnership with CloudFlare to make it easier for service providers like web hosts to grow their businesses by offering thousands of applications and cloud services to small and medium businesses (SMBs) in over 130 countries. The partnership allows Parallels Plesk Panel 11 and 10.4 service providers to offer CloudFlare's performance and security features through the APS catalog, with easy installation and two plans available: CloudFlare Free and CloudFlare Performance Plus. This collaboration benefits both parties by enabling Parallels Service Providers to resell CloudFlare to their customers and generate revenue while expanding CloudFlare's reach to more websites worldwide.