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Mitigating DDoS attacks for the best dog trainer in the world

Technology Category
  • Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security
Applicable Industries
  • Education
Applicable Functions
  • Business Operation
  • Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
  • Cybersecurity
Services
  • Cybersecurity Services
The Challenge
Cesar Millan’s website, www.cesarsway.com, is a cornerstone of his business, engaging a vast community of dog lovers and generating about $100,000 in sales monthly. However, the site began experiencing issues with its Apache server crashing, initially believed to be due to a spike in legitimate traffic. The hosting service assured them that MySQL was performing at normal levels, and it was the Apache server, the one that hosted the website, which was crashing. After some discussion with a colleague at Acquia, a company that specializes in Drupal, the CMS that runs the Cesar’s Way website, they concluded that they were under a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which was finally confirmed by the hosting provider.
About The Customer
Cesar Millan, also known as the 'Dog Whisperer', is a renowned dog trainer who has built a successful career around his passion for dogs. He has two National Geographic TV shows, a following of 3.4 million fans on Facebook and 657,000 followers on Twitter, and his teachings have helped millions of dog owners provide balance, harmony, and happy homes for their dogs. His website, www.cesarsway.com, is a cornerstone of his business, where he engages a vast community of dog lovers in discussions about what they need to create happy and fulfilling lives for their dogs, and raises awareness about the global issue of canine abandonment. The website was experiencing 4 million page views per month, generating about $100,000 in sales monthly.
The Solution
DOSarrest’s team responded immediately to Mr Gomez’s request, and recommended DOSarrest’s Proxy Defense. Proxy Defense can be set up quickly for immediate relief from a DDoS attack, and then stays on for full-time DDoS protection. The DOSarrest team outlined the steps to get set up, which Mr Gomez then communicated to the hosting provider: Install a clean IP on the Cesar’s Way server; Initiate a DNS change to point the clean IP to a DOSarrest IP; Upload the SSL certificate via DOSarrest’s secure portal; All the traffic would now be redirected to DOSarrest traffic scrubbing nodes, not passing through the Cesar’s Way server at all; DOSarrest cleaned the traffic and sent only legitimate requests back to the server, clearing the pile-up of requests on the server and resolving the issue.
Operational Impact
  • The website is better able to handle large bursts of traffic because DOSarrest’s service is built upon a content delivery network (CDN), which shares heavy traffic around to other servers on the CDN.
  • Cesar’s Way servers are saved from the overwhelming traffic spikes that can sometimes occur with legitimate traffic, and customers actually access the web pages they were looking for more quickly.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Within two hours of starting the initial conversation with DOSarrest, www.cesarsway.com was back online.
  • Since signing up with DOSarrest in March 2012, the Cesar’s Way website has not been taken down by a DDoS attack.

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