March 2016 Summaries

Click below to sign up and get $200 of credit to try our products over 60 days!If a server whirrs in a datacenter and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?Yes, yes it does. Today, we’re introducing our new acoustic monitoring feature called CloudSound. CloudSound brings the ambient, meditative sounds of datacenters to the DO control panel.Users can now spin up Droplets to the calming hum of their servers running in the background.We understand that the move from bare metal to the cloud can cause some anxiety.Instead of a deafening silence, with CloudSound, you’re reassured that everything works with the steady, pleasant datacenter buzz of yesteryear…Is the sound of whirring servers through your headphones not enough? DigitalOcean is currently hiring people to work in our datacenters; experience CloudSound all the time!

doctl` is a command-line interface (CLI) tool that provides an accessible interface to DigitalOcean's API, taking full advantage of improvements introduced in API V2 and support for newer features like Reserved IPs. It allows developers to deliver more complex features and workflows as well as simplify their terminal experience with tools such as `doctl auth login` and `doctl account get`. The tool is available as a precompiled binary for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, and can be used to create Droplets, manage resources, and perform various other tasks. It also simplifies complex workflows, such as snapshotting a Droplet, by handling the action ID and continuous query for status. Additionally, `doctl` allows users to SSH to their Droplets by name without having to assign an IP address in DNS. The tool is written in Go, completely open source, and available on GitHub.

DigitalOcean's DNS infrastructure was unavailable for two hours and four minutes due to a DDoS attack. The resolvers were overwhelmed by an unusually large number of queries, causing cache invalidation and further stress on the system. DigitalOcean worked with their DDoS mitigation provider to identify the source and types of traffic, block malicious requests, and increase TTLs for cached DNS records. After engaging with their provider, the service began responding to queries with normal latencies, and most of the filtering was removed by 7:22 pm UTC. To prevent similar incidents in the future, DigitalOcean is reviewing and improving various pieces of infrastructure, including better means of moving DNS traffic around within their network, decoupling provisioning from the DDoS mitigation provider, and enhancing internal communication to test mitigation techniques more effectively.