What is Your True Internet Speed? Are those Speed Tests Telling the Truth?

November 2, 2015 — netequalizer

When the consumer Internet came of age back in 1990, there was never any grand plan to insure a consistent speed from one point to another. Somewhere along the line, as the Internet went from an academic tool to an essential consumer device, providers in their effort to “out market” one another began to focus on speed as their primary differentiator. By definition, the Internet is a “best effort” corroboration between providers to move your data. No one provider can guarantee a consistent Internet speed for everything you do.  They only have control over their own physical lines, and even then, there are variables beyond their control (which I will address shortly).

Let’s take a look at the speed of wired networks common to most consumers, Cable and DSL.

The physical line into your house is generally what your cable or DSL provider is talking about when they advertise your Internet speed. Essentially, how fast is the link between the providers NOC and your house. Generally you will have a dedicated line for this, and so your speed on this last mile link does not vary.

The good news is that most consumers are more concerned with watching movies, video, listening to music, etc. than they are about pulling research data of some obscure server in Serbia. Given this reality, the Industry has gotten very smart, and popular content is not hosted at some distant server, but is usually distributed locally to each provider. The best example of this is Netflix. Your Netflix content is most likely coming from a server hosted a few miles from your house in your providers NOC, and not from some grand Netflix central location.

Why is Netflix data hosted locally ?

The dirty industry secret is that your provider pays a fee when you go off their network for data. There are also potential capacity problems when you go off their network.  Is this a bad thing? No not really, it is just a matter of efficiency. We see similar practices in other product distribution models. You don’t drive to New York to pick up a toaster, there is usually one waiting for you at your nearest discount store. For the some of the same reasons, that you don’t go to New York to pick up a toaster, your provider tries to host your digital data locally when possible.

What does this mean for your Internet Speed?

It means that when you retrieve content that your provider hosts locally you are likely going to get your advertised speed. This also holds true for some speed test sites, if they are hosted within your providers network they are going to register a constantly higher speed.

What happens to your Internet speed when you go off your providers network? 

There are several factors that will effect your speed.

The main governing factor affecting speed is the capacity the of your providers exchange point.  This is a switching point where your provider exchanges data with other networks.  Depending on how much investment your provider put into this infrastructure this switching point can back up when there is more data being moved than it has capacity to handle. When this happens you get gridlock at the exchange point, and  your Internet speed can plummet.  Gridlock is always a real possibility because your provider just cannot anticipate all the content you are retrieving and sometimes it is not hosted locally.

What does my provider to to alleviate gridlock not their exchange point?

Some providers will actually lower your Internet speed when you are crossing an exchange point.  Or if their circuits are overloaded in general. I experienced this effect which I described in detail a few months ago when I was updating my IPAD.

After the exchange point the speed at which you get your data external to your providers network depends on the whims of every provider and back bone along the route. That obscure research paper from that server in Serbia , may have to make multiple hops to get out of Serbia and then onto some international back bone, and finally to your providers exchange point. There is no way anyone can anticipate at what rate this data will arrive.

How can I run a speed test that better reflects my speed out to the real Internet, by passing locally hosted speed test servers?

A few years ago we ran into this tool set that deliberately tries to retrieve all kinds of remote data to measure your true internet speed. You can also search out files hosted on obscure servers and try to download them.  Perhaps I’ll run a follow up article documenting some of my experiences.

Posted in Network Speed. 1 Comment »

Amusing IT Stories

October 29, 2015 — netequalizer

Anybody that has done IT support will appreciate this post. Feel free to tell us your stories…

Early on when we first started shipping pre-built NetEqualizer units, the underlying Linux server shipped with the factory default password of “password”. The first line of our installation instructions, in big bold type, instructed customers to re-set this password. I am one of those people that will open a box, and plug things in without reading directions, so I really can’t point fingers at customers that did not reset their password. Never the less, it makes a good story…

It was only a matter time before we started getting support calls about strange behavior on our systems.

Since we had a standard customized unique setup, it was easy to tell if system files had been altered, and that is usually where hackers struck. One day, we got a call from an irate WISP. Evidently, his upstream provider had shut down his link to the Internet because he was spewing massive amounts of spam. When he tracked the spam messages down to the NetEqualizer, he actually thought we were deliberately running a rogue spam server. To this day, even though we promised it was not us, he still thinks we had a side business of rogue spam servers. We could not convince him that his box had been hacked.

For my all time favorite we have to go to southeast Asia where we had a NetEqualizer (bandwidth shaper) in place. The customer kept calling saying it was not doing anything.  We got a look at a diagnostic and were able to confirm the customers observation. He was correct, our box was not doing anything. There was clearly no traffic going through our box.  It was also clear that there was another path through the customers network, because his network was up and running fine. We pleaded with the customer to send us a diagram of some kind, but he did not believe us, and continued to blame our box for being useless. We could clearly see that neither network interface was seeing any traffic, so there was no sense trying to help him.  At this point we just refunded his money and took the unit back. Short of flying to Asia and figuring out his routing, there was nothing we could do. About 6 months later, he calls, and is desperate to re-purchase the box he returned. Turns out as we suspected all traffic was going through his wireless router, but I have no idea why it took six months to figure that out. And frankly I don’t really want to know.

Over the past 10 years we have had this scenario at least 3 times maybe more.

Caller: “I have read all the manuals, hooked up all the interfaces, but the box is not passing any traffic.”

Support: “Did you power the unit up?”

Called: “Oh sorry, I forgot that step.”

In fairness to the customer, when you plug the power cord in there are some status lights that come on, but you still need to press the on/off button on the front to get it to boot up. :)

Posted in Commentary and Editorials. Leave a Comment »

NetEqualizer News: October 2015

October 13, 2015 — netequalizer

October 2015

Greetings!

Enjoy another issue of NetEqualizer News! This month, we preview more Release 8.4 features, preview our NE5000 unit, ask you to Imagine If what future features would help you, and update you on our DDoS tool. As always, feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested in NetEqualizer News.
A message from Art…
Art Reisman, CTO – APconnections

Cool temperatures, crisp weather all mean one thing – fall has arrived in the U.S.! I am enjoying the change of season, and love the cold weather. art

Speaking of temperature, this month we talk about our NE5000 – which will have extra fans to keep it cool as well as built-in failover. You can read more about the NE5000 below. We also update you on the upcoming 8.4 Release, planned to rollout this winter. We give you a chance to influence future releases, in our Imagine If section. Also, we continue to see our DDoS tools make a difference for our customers, you can read more below…

twitterAnd remember we are now on Twitter! You can now follow us @NetEqualizer.

We love it when we hear back from you – so if you have a story you would like to share with us of how we have helped you, let us know. Email me directly at art@apconnections.net. I would love to hear from you!

Release 8.4: Preview

We have been working hard on Release 8.4 and are excited to release the new features! Here are a couple of our favorites:

See an nslookup of a host directly below the IP address in RTR – This is a feature often requested by our customers with networks where an IP address translates to a hostname. For administrators with these networks, you’ll now be able to quickly see the hostname associated with an IP in every screen within RTR!

We’ve enhanced our messaging within RTR to help guide usage – This includes enhancements to error messages and status messages to make RTR even easier for you to use!

Look for more announcements on Release 8.4, currently planned for Dec/Jan timeframe, in upcoming newsletters.

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DDoS In The Field

One of the challenges when creating a security tool is validating that it works when it really matters.

We have heard, via anonymous sources, that many of the high-dollar solutions out there create bloated, rotting piles of information, whose only purpose is to look impressive due to their voluminous output. These tools cover everything, leaving the customer to decide what to do; which is usually nothing or some misguided task.

These non-specific tools are about as useful as a weather forecast that predicts everything all the time. Rain, snow, wind, hot, cold, for everyday of the year. If you predict everything you can’t be wrong?

On the other hand, the reports from the field coming in for our DDoS tool are:

Yes, it works.
Yes, it is simple to use.
Yes, it takes action when appropriate.

We have confirmation that our DDoS tool, combined with our shaping algorithms, has kept some very large institutions up and running while under very heavy, sophisticated DDoS attacks.

b851c0ac-7a14-4798-9fb4-65400536834b

The reason is simple:

We first look at the pattern of incoming packets in a normal situation. When the pattern reaches a watermark that is clearly beyond normal, we block those incoming circuits.

If needed, we can also take a softer approach, so the attacker is not aware we are throttling them. This is needed because in some situations outright blocking will alert the attacker you are on to them and cause the attacker to double-down.

When under DDoS attack you don’t need reports; you need immediate action. If you would like to discuss our solution in more detail feel free to contact us!

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NE5000: Almost Ready for Primetime!
& Exciting Test Lab Results

Just a few minor tweaks and presto! Our new NE5000 will be ready to go! The test lab box is humming along with 125,000 connections per second, and pushing a sustained 8.5 Gbps up and 8.5 Gbps down without a hiccup.

neteq

There is nothing else out there on the market with that kind of shaping power close to our price point. The Layer 7 and deep packet inspection technologies are just way too CPU intensive to keep up with our price/performance curve. So what has happened since we last talked about our NE5000?

1. We revamped the Fiber Cards offered with it to take advantage of multiple CPU’s handling and processing interrupts. This boosted our speed and processing to go near line speed on 10Gig without sacrificing any shaping features.
2. Even the search features in the GUI connection table are lightning quick – running a table size of 250,000 entries!
3. It still comes standard with a DUAL power supply.
4. Failover Internal Fiber ports – there is nothing external to wire.
5. And the best part is… we lowered the list price from $30,000 to $20,000!

Now, you don’t have to create a new budget to get the security of a solid bandwidth shaper at those line speeds. Contact us if you are interested in a new unit or upgrading.

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Imagine If…
What Would Help You?

As a networking tool vendor we cannot possibly figure out what is needed in the marketplace without the help of our customers! Many of our best features came directly from you!

Winter break is a time when we experiment with new exciting features and product ideas. If you get a chance, take a moment to think of that killer app that would help you, the IT administrator, with your job.

97f56a8a-473a-4b6f-bad3-58cef26d96db

Imagine If…

There are no rules here! Feel free to be creative! Imagine a robot that goes around and does your job. What are some of the things you would want that robot to do?

Should we adopt your idea, we would also be open to sharing licensing and revenue. Please contact us with your thoughts!

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Best Of The Blog

White Paper: A Simple Guide to Network Capacity Planning

By Art Reisman – CTO – APconnections

Oh, how times have changed. I noticed this article from 2010 was getting some recent traffic in our blog. If you read it carefully you’ll see that our basic advice for capacity planning is still relevant. Only, I had to laugh at the specific examples and numbers we used as they are woefully out-of-date.

—

After many years of consulting and supporting the networking world with WAN optimization devices, we have sensed a lingering fear among Network Administrators who wonder if their capacity is within the normal range.

So the question remains:

How much bandwidth can you survive with before you impact morale or productivity?

The formal term we use to describe the number of users sharing a network link to the Internet is contention ratio. This term is defined as the size of an Internet trunk divided by the number of users. We normally think of Internet trunks in units of megabits. For example, 10 users sharing a one megabit trunk would have a 10-to-1 contention ratio. If sharing the bandwidth on the trunk equally and simultaneously, each user could sustain a constant feed of 100 kbps, which is exactly 1/10 of the overall bandwidth…
Photo Of The Month
UNH
New England, United States
The six states that make up New England (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island) are beautiful in the fall. The temperatures get a little cooler and the leaves start to change color. This picture was taken on the campus of the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.
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Five Bars Does not Always Mean Good Data Why ?

October 12, 2015 — netequalizer

I have a remote get-away cabin in the middle of the Kansas Prairie where I sometimes escape to work for a couple of days.   I use my Verizon 4G data service as my Internet connection as this is my best option. Even though I usually have 3 or 4 bars of solid signal, my data service comes and goes. Sometimes it is unbelievably fast, and other times I can’t raise a simple web page before timing out. What gives?
The reason for this variability is the fact that the wireless providers actually have two different networks. One for their traditional phone service, and one for the Internet.  Basically what this means is that the tower sites that you are getting your cell signal from actually have two circuits coming in. One is for the traditional cell service, which is almost always available as long as you have a strong signal (5 bars) on your phone.  And the other carries the legacy phone connection. Each one taking a different path out from the cell tower.

Limited Data Line to towers. The data service to each tower is subject to local or regional congestion depending on where and how your provider connects you to the Internet.  In rural Kansas during the broadband initiative the cellular companies had no Internet presence in the area, so they contracted with the local Internet companies to back haul Internet links to their cell towers. Some of these back haul links to the Internet have very limited data capacity, and hence they can get congested when there are multiple data users competing for this limited resource.

A second reason for slow data service is the limited amount of wireless frequency between your phone and the tower. Even though you may have 4 bars and a good phone connection, it is likely that your wireless provider limits data usage during peak times so they are not forced to drop calls. Think of it like two lanes on a highway, one is the priority lane for phone service , and then there is the data lane which can get jammed with data.

So the next time you can’t find directions to your favorite restaurant, or Siri is having a fit, just remember not all is fair on the data circuit to your tower and beyond.

Posted in Wireless Internet. Leave a Comment »

If you are ever in need of a monitoring tool visit this site

October 8, 2015 — netequalizer

This group from Stanford has put together a web page with an exhaustive list of monitoring tools.

A great site if you are network administrator, and tired of all the google shenanigans in your search results. Just a list of everything related to network monitor tools.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html#suggest

Posted in Bandwidth Monitoring. Leave a Comment »

NetEqualizer DDoS Firewall: Simple and Effective without the Bloat

October 8, 2015 — netequalizer

One of the challenges when creating a security tool is validating that it works when the S$%^ hits the fan.  We have heard (via anonymous sources) that many of the high-dollar solutions out there create bloated, rotting piles of information, whose only purpose is to look impressive due to their voluminous output.  A typical $100K buys you a CYA report. A tool that covers  everything, leaving the customer to decide what to do; which is usually nothing or some misguided “make work”. These non-specific tools are about as useful as a weather forecast that predicts everything all the time. Rain, Snow, Wind, Hot, Cold, for everyday of the year. If you predict everything you can’t be wrong?

On the other hand, the reports from the field coming in for our DDoS tool are:

Yes, it works.

Yes, it is simple to use.

Yes, it takes action when appropriate.

We have confirmation that our DDoS tool, combined with our shaping algorithms, has kept some very large institutions up and running while under very heavy, sophisticated DDoS attacks.   The reasons are simple. We look at the pattern of incoming packets in a normal situation.  When the pattern reaches a watermark that is clearly beyond normal, we block those incoming circuits. If needed, we can also take a softer approach, so the attacker is not aware we are throttling them.  This is needed because in some situations outright blocking will alert the attacker you are on to them and cause the attacker to double-down.

When under DDoS attack you don’t need reports; you need immediate action. If you would like to discuss our solution in more detail feel free to contact us.

Posted in Bandwidth Monitoring, DDoS, Security. Leave a Comment »

A Cure for Electronic Theft?

October 4, 2015 — netequalizer

What if we created  a new electronic currency a-la Bitcoin with a twist.   Let’s start by taking an idea from the Federal Government, and put a water mark on our personal funds , something unique that signifies who legally possesses the currency. Cattle ranchers do this with a brand so nobody steals their cattle.  This has worked pretty well for a few hundred years right ?

With our new personal watermark, suppose somebody breaks into your bank, and wires all your money to some idiot in Russia. In today’s world the only way to find that money is to follow the trail, and that takes a huge effort from a banking forensics person, working with International governments.  The money may travel so fast it may not be possible to recover. Now, suppose the funds had an electronic tag that could not be altered by a criminal.   For example currency in your possession  has  a public private encryption key, and only you can authorize a change in possession.

I am not going to spend any more effort on the mechanics of currency ownership, suffice to say it could be done in many different ways. The problem with my proposed solution is the resistance it will meet from all sides.

  • The privacy crowd, will beat the drum and scare ignorant people  into thinking that the government will know how much money they have. The flaw with this argument is , unless you are underground and dealing in cash now, every bank transaction you have ever made is visible to the government. In essence, there is no net change here in terms of privacy. I’d also be fine with an optional cash currency for those that want to opt out, I don’t really care. For tax paying citizens with nothing to hide there is no new privacy downside to watermarking your funds.
  • The security industry will backdoor fight this tooth and nail. As I alluded to in a previous article , the security business has grown to a magnitude of scale well beyond the assets they protect. In other words the security industry is extorting more funds than the actual threat they are protecting you against.
  • Mexico, a country that does 80 billion plus in the drug trade, has no interest in traceable funds. Someplace, some-where, they  will lobby against this change, under the guise of some legitimate reason.
  • Politicians and their donors. Despite the rhetoric, there is absolutely no incentive to make this process transparent.
Posted in Security. Leave a Comment »

IT Security Business Is Your Frenemy

September 27, 2015 — netequalizer

Is there a security company out there working in conjunction with a hacker, possibly creating the demand for their services? The old Insurance protection shakedown turned high tech? And, if so, how would you know?  I try to make it clear to our customers  that we are not in the security business for this very reason, but for most IT equipment and consulting companies security is becoming their main business driver.

If the world’s largest automaker will commit fraud to gain an advantage, there must be a few security companies out there that might rationalize breaking into a companies network, while at the same time offering them security equipment in order to make a sale.  Perhaps they are not meeting their sales goals, or facing bankruptcy, or just trying to grow. The fact is, IT investment in security is big business.   The train is rolling down the tracks, and just like our war on drugs, increased spending and manpower seems to have no measurable results.  Who makes more money, companies that make bank vaults, or the criminals that attempt to rob banks? I bet, if you add up all the revenue gleaned from stolen credit cards or other electronic assets, that it is pennies on the dollar when compared to spending on IT security.

Posted in Commentary and Editorials, Security. 1 Comment »

NetEqualizer News: September 2015

September 18, 2015 — netequalizer

September 2015

Greetings!

Enjoy another issue of NetEqualizer News! This month, we spotlight the NetEqualizer Installation Process, walk through the updated Viewing Traffic section of our NetEqualizer Quick Start Guide, discuss our expanded DDoS Firewall, and show off our new NetEqualizer 8.3 User Guide. As always, feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested in NetEqualizer News.
A message from Art…
Art Reisman, CTO – APconnections

We are almost officially in the fall season in the Northern Hemisphere, and I am enjoying harvesting all my tomatoes, and sadly, very few (and small) pumpkins! Some really good news, though, is that I think my fencing successfully thwarted a raccoon or skunk that was attacking my garden. art

Speaking of attacks, this month I have an update on our DDoS Monitor & Firewall modules. We also are ready to harvest updated 8.3 Documentation, which can educate you on our new features. And finally, we are excited to spotlight our Installation Process, which you can take advantage of for any new NetEqualizer or trade-in!

twitterAnd remember we are now on Twitter! You can now follow us @NetEqualizer.

We love it when we hear back from you – so if you have a story you would like to share with us of how we have helped you, let us know. Email me directly at art@apconnections.net. I would love to hear from you!

Spotlight on: The NetEqualizer Installation Process

We recently added a process for all new and trade-in NetEqualizer sales that we are very excited about – the NetEqualizer Installation Process!

This process assigns you an Installation Engineer at the time of sale or trade-in. The sole purpose of the installation engineer is to ensure that you get your NetEqualizer set up correctly and that any questions you might have are answered.

We can be as involved or hands-off as you would like us to be.

What we can do for you:95eddc45-a83d-4581-8768-51480d718587

– Review a Diagnostic:
Send us a diagnostic of your recently set up NetEqualizer so that our Support Team can analyze it for misconfigurations or other problems.

– Review Traffic Limit settings:60b7a936-f0fb-4b75-bd85-6f31fcb180a9
Many customers want to use Pools, Hard Limits, and Priority Hosts. We can help by reviewing your traffic limiting strategy and providing best practice recommendations.

– Review your install over a WebEx:
We can schedule a time to go over your system using the WebEx screen-sharing utility. During this time we can look at live traffic, review settings, or answer any other questions that might come up.a66e4c89-c606-4011-96f7-b74e85d5b0e9

– Connect remotely to your NetEqualizer:
If your NetEqualizer is available remotely, we would be happy to log in and do any required support tasks or settings adjustments.

– Answer questions via phone or email:
If you just have a quick question regarding our product, feel free to email our Support Team or your Installation Engineer any time!

How you benefit:

There are many benefits that this service provides to both technical and non-technical customers. For example:

  • You can proactively prevent problems by letting us review your setup for potential issues.
  • You can optimize your NetEqualizer for your network so that your users have a great experience online. Every environment is different and we can help with the most efficient settings.
  • You can learn more about our product, technology, and features. This will allow you to more effectively administer the device.

The NetEqualizer Installation Process is free to anyone who purchases a new NetEqualizer or trades in an old unit for a new one.

What if I just need to learn about the latest NetEqualizer releases?

You need a Tech Refresh! All customers that have valid NetEqualizer Software and Support (NSS) are eligible for additional training and help, via our Technical Refresh. Contact our Support Team to schedule a Tech Refresh today.

To find out more about our new Installation Process, contact us!

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8.3 Quick Start Guide –
Viewing Traffic

Earlier this month, we enhanced our Quick Start Guide to talk in more detail about how to view traffic going through the NetEqualizer using our reporting tool (Dynamic RTR).bb536892-85a9-4e08-9647-4103f03ef363

Here is a preview of what we added to the Quick Start Guide. To check out all the changes, see the full version of the guide here (starting on page 12).

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View Current Traffic
Use the Active Connections menu and sub-menus to look at what is happening on the NetEqualizer right now.

Seeing traffic successfully pass through your device after the initial set up is a
great sign things are working properly!

View Historical Traffic
But, once that is up and running, you’ll want to set up reporting so that you can see what’s been happening on your network historically.

In order to get the most from the NetEqualizer reporting tool, you’ll want to follow these steps:

1) Start RTR
This is required for tracking data historically.

2) Add IPs to Track
InRTR, add IP addresses you want to save traffic history for to Manage Traffic History -> Manage Tracked IPs. Most of the time, this will be all your local subnets.

3) View History
Use the Traffic History menu and sub-menus to look at what has happened on the NetEqualizer in the past.

If you’d like a Tech Refresh to walk through any of the reporting features, including the enhanced ability to view traffic, and are current on NetEqualizer Software and Support (NSS), contact us today!

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DDoS Firewall Expanded –
Notes from the Field

As a special bonus in our DDoS Firewall, we found out during implementation that we can also program our firewall scripts to identify an internal virus or hijacked computer.

If you are interested in more visibility in detecting an outside attack or virus-laden computer within your network, feel free to contact us for a quick consulting session, and we’ll see if we can customize a firewall and notification system for you!

The DDoS Firewall is an add-on module to the NetEqualizer. Please contact us to learn about pricing for your environment.

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8.3 User Guide Now Available!

We have talked a lot in past newsletters about the 8.3 Release and all the new and exciting features we’ve added.

Starting today, all of those new features are now described in detail in our 8.3 User Guide! This document is a great resource for ensuring RTR is set up correctly and also to provide assistance in answering any questions you might have.

Learn more about these exciting new features:

1) Top Talkers Report – this has been one of the most requested graphs and was a popular feature of our previous reporting tool, ntop. You can use this feature to see which IP addresses have used the most bandwidth over time.

toptalkers

2) General Penalty Report – we are bringing this one back from the first version of RTR! You can see both IPs that are currently being penalized, as well as a historical count of penalties that have occurred over time.

penalties

3) Connection Count Report – NetEqualizer controls P2P traffic by using connection count limits on IP addresses. However, figuring out what limit to set for your network depends on how it’s used. You can use the new Connection Count Report to see how many connections individual IP addresses have, and thus set your connection limit to the appropriate level.

connectioncounts

You can read more about all of the features of the 8.3 Release here, in our updated User Guide. If you have any questions, contact us!

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Best Of The Blog

Death to Deep Packet Inspection?

By Art Reisman – CTO – APconnections

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how I was able to watch YouTube while on a United flight, bypassing their layer 7 filtering techniques. Following up today, I was not surprised to see a few other articles on the subject popping up recently…
Photo Of The Month
Bobcat Caught on Wildlife Cam
The bobcat is a cat which first appeared nearly 1.8 million years ago. Containing 12 subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to central Mexico – including much of the United States. This one was recently captured on a staff member’s wildlife camera.
Posted in Newsletters. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Death to Deep Packet Inspection?

September 8, 2015 — netequalizer

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how I was able to watch YouTube while on a United flight, bypassing their layer 7 filtering techniques. Following up today, I was not surprised to see a few other articles on the subject popping up recently.

Stealth VPNs By-Pass DPI

How to By Pass Deep Packet Inspection

Encryption Death to DPI

I also just recently heard from a partner company that Meraki/Cisco was abandoning their WAN DPI technology in their access points.   I am not sure from the details if this was due to poor performance from DPI , but that is what I suspect.

Lastly, even the US government is annoyed that much of the data they formally had easy access to is now being encrypted by tech companies to protect their customer base privacy.

Does this recent storm of chatter on the subject spell the end  of commercial deep packet inspection? In my opinion no, not in the near term. The lure of DPI is so strong that preaching against it is like Galileo telling the church to shove off, it is going to take some time. And technically there are still many instances where DPI works quite well.

Posted in Bandwidth Management, Bandwidth Monitoring. 2 Comments »

Yikes I Have Been Hacked

August 25, 2015 — netequalizer

I had just opened up my network to outside requests ,thinking this will only take a few minutes.  The idea was to  attack my home network from the outside, blasting it  with endless loops of rapid queries from external servers in cyber space, thus simulating a DDOS attack  .    It turns out I was not alone in attacking my Network .

When I went to my monitor DDOS monitor screen to see my attack, I saw  the chart below.   All those Source Ports showing  22 are the result of a server on my network , randomly attempting to login to computers outside my network .  How ironic , while testing my own DDOS software from an outside attack , I find out that one of my servers has been hijacked to do the dirty work for some other hacker.  I am only showing about 46 attempts  in the table below, but all in all ,there were about 450 of them.  They  appeared all of a sudden out of nowhere.  And then, Comcast shut me down, when I hit their security circuit breaker.  Or so I surmised, because this is not the first time this has happened to me, and I usually get  a call from Comcast telling me to run my virus software.  You know how you are not supposed to talk to strangers ? Well I had been getting these calls out of the blue from somebody claiming to be “Comcast” security , and the sounds in the background during the scratchy call were like one of those Indian boiler plate call centers … so I had been ignoring them, just humoring these people.  But perhaps they really were Comcast ? Or perhaps this was just the coup do grace from the hacker pretending to be Comcast after orchestrating the attack, in order to gain my trust and get my bank account ?  Like a bad Mission Impossible plot I don’t know who to trust anymore.
Index     SRCP    DSTP    Wavg    Avg       IP1           IP2           Ptcl  Port  Pool  TOS
0     46762      22   203   336    191.7.193.69   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
1     54211      22    29    90    85.25.211.119   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
2     52734      22    15     0    174.159.244.177   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
3        22   33388    42     0    192.168.1.130   93.97.181.70  TCP   2   2    1
4        22   49398   238   277    192.168.1.130   125.137.155.50  TCP   2   2    1
5     49184      22    66   152    192.81.170.254   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
6        22   49184   163   374    192.168.1.130   192.81.170.254  TCP   2   2    1
7     51722      22   142   214    217.92.189.104   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
8     38133      22    11     0    146.155.249.71   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
9     55232      22    93   400    178.49.172.175   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
10     50373      22    20    40    190.81.51.11   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
11        22   40073    21    35    192.168.1.130   31.45.215.117  TCP   2   2    1
12        22   39950    11    40    192.168.1.130   101.251.207.162  TCP   2   2    1
13        22   51889     9     0    192.168.1.130   169.236.135.241  TCP   2   2    1
14        22   53866   204  1036    192.168.1.130   95.211.215.206  TCP   2   2    1
15     57596      22    93   236    207.244.67.170   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
16        22   51971   188   384    192.168.1.130   66.242.228.2  TCP   2   2    1
17        22   53617   328   580    192.168.1.130   37.228.133.94  TCP   2   2    1
18     52574      22   206   338    177.21.237.77   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
19        22   56081    23    93    192.168.1.130   216.104.36.94  TCP   2   2    1
20        22   41126   213   771    192.168.1.130   176.31.199.232  TCP   2   2    1
21        22   33853   209   384    192.168.1.130   71.11.128.190  TCP   2   2    1
22        22   52185   282  2369    192.168.1.130   74.220.208.72  TCP   2   2    1
23        22   54224   224  1032    192.168.1.130   46.32.230.170  TCP   2   2    1
24        22   52065   710   806    192.168.1.130   49.212.12.217  TCP   2   2    1
25     43568      22    28    88    52.2.123.169   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
26        22   39032   200   558    192.168.1.130   199.34.242.73  TCP   2   2    1
27     53968      22   148   265    37.228.133.94   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
28     39950      22    17    60    101.251.207.162   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
29        22   44785   320   464    192.168.1.130   87.230.40.94  TCP   2   2    1
30     41889      22    13     0    70.4.134.198   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
31        22   35743   233   368    192.168.1.130   141.105.174.210  TCP   2   2    1
32        22   48689   298   373    192.168.1.130   12.11.100.194  TCP   2   2    1
33     36165      22   226   293    200.170.215.154   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
34     44991      22    53   146    191.5.224.79   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
35     38500      22   180   345    192.227.164.167   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
36     50944      22     8     0    199.174.12.17   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
37     39511      22   168   319    104.128.117.32   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
38     53820      22    16    30    95.84.153.61   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
39     47030      22   225   261    190.161.86.105   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
40        22   38500   367   735    192.168.1.130   192.227.164.167  TCP   2   2    1
41     33165      22   119   248    138.94.144.250   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
42     51185      22    18    60    46.105.163.187   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
43     48472      22    18    60    72.249.105.159   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
44     32890      22    89   174    95.177.200.94   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
45     57725      22    75   180    88.11.129.198   192.168.1.130  TCP   1   2    1
46        22   55358  1072  1373    192.168.1.130   138.91.57.190  TCP   2   2    1

Posted in Security. Leave a Comment »

NetEqualizer News: August 2015

August 11, 2015 — netequalizer

August 2015

Greetings!

Enjoy another issue of NetEqualizer News! This month, we preview our 8.4 Winter Release plans, highlight several recent testimonials from K-12 schools, talk about a DDoS attack thwarted by NetEqualizer, announce our new social media presence on Twitter, and discuss Demo Site updates. As always, feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested in NetEqualizer News.
A message from Art…
Art Reisman, CTO – APconnections

It is hard to believe it, but summer is almost over – at least for all the students going back to school or college in late August here in the U.S.! artIn honor of back-to-school, this month we share some of our latest testimonials from schools – see what they are saying about the NetEqualizer! We also highlight a real-life experience of how we helped one of our school customers catch a DDoS botnet. And, if you want to school yourself in something new, you can view our latest 8.3 reports, now available on our Demo Site.

And although it is still warm, we are starting to plan for winter – read about our Winter Release plans below, and let us know what you think!

twitterWe are excited to announce that NetEqualizer is now on Twitter! You can now follow us @NetEqualizer.

We love it when we hear back from you – so if you have a story you would like to share with us of how we have helped you, let us know. Email me directly at art@apconnections.net. I would love to hear from you!

NetEqualizer is now on Twitter!

We are excited to announce that NetEqualizer has joined Twitter!twitter

If you would like to follow us, our handle is @NetEqualizer.

Just like our popular NetEqualizer News blog, @NetEqualizer will be geared toward topics around network optimization and Internet security.

We will tweet out insights on subjects from the latest in network security, traffic shaping, QoS, and net neutrality, as well as commentary on the state of Internet politics.

If this sounds interesting to you, follow us and share our account with others!

Let’s Go Back to School!
What K-12 schools are saying about NetEqualizer

Did you know NetEqualizer is a K-12 School Top 100 Product? K-12 school IT administrators love NetEqualizer! So much so that many have agreed to provide testimonials for us to post on our website.

Here are some of the recent ones we added:

The Lawrenceville School

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“We’ve been a NetEqualizer customer for several years and I want you to know how pleased we are with it. Unlike our previous bandwidth management product which required constant tending and updates, the NetEqualizer works exactly as advertised: plug it in and forget it. Our Internet connections run smoothly regardless of the kind or amount of traffic thrown at it. Thanks again!”

Mark Costello – Network Engineer

Miss Hall’s School

misshalls

“We have been extremely happy with our NetEqualizer. Gone are the bottlenecks that used to occur when all of our students were on the Internet at the same time. The NetEqualizer handles all of the bandwidth management, keeping our users happy, and has been completely hassle-free for our admins.”

Matt Pocock – Director of Technology

The Athenian School

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“NetEqualizer is one of very few products that lives up to its promise. After initial configuration it simply does manage traffic in defined pools/objects. There is no complex application based rules or management required. It is a fantastic product that makes the life of a school network manager easier.”

Matt Binder – Director of Information Systems

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Contact us if you would like your quote added to our testimonials page – even if you are not in the education space! We love hearing from all our customers about how we’ve helped them control congestion on their networks.

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NetEqualizer Demo Site Has 8.3 Reporting
Updated with 8.3 Reporting

The NetEqualizer Demo Site now has the latest release (8.3) applied! This means that all of the exciting new features we’ve been discussing in our newsletter over the last few months are available to see for both new and existing customers.pdg

If you’d like to check out the new 8.3 features for yourself, you can do so here.

We’ve also updated our Product Demo Guide to reflect some of the changes we’ve made to the site.

If you have any questions about the latest release or would like to schedule a Technical Refresh to go over the new features, please feel free to contact us!

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DDoS Gets Real

Think DDoS attacks only happen to other organizations? Sadly, no one is immune. The NetEqualizer is often placed in a unique position in a network such that it can provide real-time intelligence as to whether or not a DDoS attack is occurring. See recent articles regarding DDoS in our blog.

We’ve already heard stories from customers about how they’ve used the NetEqualizer to thwart DDoS attacks but we’ve never actually witnessed one in person – until last week. During a Tech Refresh call with one of our K-12 customers, the training engineer noticed abnormal traffic initiated from the outside to one of the school’s database servers. The IP looked suspicious and when geolocated, turned out to be from Hong Kong. The engineer then looked up the IP address in the active connections table and discovered it was hammering port 22 (SSH). This could have been a multitude of things including the beginning of a DDoS attack or a brute force attempt at connecting to the server. The school administrator immediately took action and blocked the IP.

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While the NetEqualizer is excellent and controlling bandwidth congestion, don’t forget that its data can also be helpful in diagnosing other network-related issues, including DDoS!

See our recent blog article about discovering this attack, here.

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8.4 Winter Release Plans

We are excited to announce that our Winter Release (8.4) is underway! 8.4 is targeted for the November through January 2016 timeframe

This release will focus on several key areas in the NetEqualizer GUI: Pool Enhancements, DDoS Alerts, and Built-in Configuration & Scripts, which we will discuss below.

Pool Enhancements
Many of you are familiar with our concept of shared limits, which we call “Pools.” Pools are a great way to allocate bandwidth (not reserved) to a group of IPs or subnets. Pools are used by many NetEqualizer customers who need to provide bandwidth to groups of users on their networks.

We find that Pools align with various concepts for different customer types:

1) Access Points (Internet Providers)
2) Buildings (Colleges or Schools)
3) Groups (Libraries – patrons/staff, Schools – staff/students/wireless guests)

As Pools have grown in popularity over the years, we now are focusing on making them easy to use. To do this we are going to add the ability to name your pools (so that you can better keep track of them), view subnets within your pools (so that you can better see which pool a user belongs to), and the ability to edit pools on the fly (so that you no longer have to remove and re-add them when you need to make a change).

DDoS Alerts
Adding to our existing email alert capability, we are now going to build in alerts for suspected DDoS traffic picked up by our DDoS Monitor. While checking the DDoS periodically will still be important, the alerts will give you piece of mind that your network is always being monitored for abnormal traffic.

ddos

For an example of why this is important, see the article titled “DDoS Gets Real” in this month’s newsletter.

Built-in Configuration & Scripts
Another feature of 8.4 will be the incorporation of some of our most popular custom configuration scripts that historically have only been available via our online help or our support team.

We will now have interfaces for setting up HTTPS on your NetEqualizer as well as the ability to have time-of-day configurations (configurations that change based on different needs throughout the day).

The goal with these features is to reduce work for customers, streamline workflow, and enhance our user interface with some of our most popular scripts that are not yet represented via the GUI.

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If you have an idea for a GUI enhancement aligned with Pools, DDoS or Built-in Configuration & Scripts that you would like to be considered for 8.4, please let us know!

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These features are free to all customers with valid NetEqualizer Software and Support. If you are not current with NSS, contact us today!

Best Of The Blog

How Does Your ISP Actually Enforce Your Internet Speed?

By Art Reisman – CTO – APconnections

Every once in a while I’ll post something on Reddit just to see the response. A couple of weeks ago I posted a link to this article and it generated about 3,000 hits over the course of a day.

This was even after I got a nasty note from the moderator saying I posted it in the wrong place. It was kind of ironic that 3,000 people were interested, maybe they click on anything that blinks?

I don’t know. Many of these articles you see on our blog are the result of technical conversations with customers. I’ll spend a good deal of mental energy explaining a concept and when appropriate I’ll take my notes and turn into an information article. Hence this blog post was born, I never imagined it would have such broad appeal.

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Have you ever wondered how your ISP manages to control the speed of your connection? If so, you might find the following article enlightening. Below, we’ll discuss the various trade-offs used to control and break out bandwidth rate limits and the associated side effects of using those techniques.

Dropping Packets (Cisco term “traffic policing”)

One of the simplest methods for a bandwidth controller to enforce a rate cap is by dropping packets. When using the packet-dropping method, the bandwidth controlling device will count the total number of bytes that cross a link during a second. If the target rate is exceeded during any single second, the bandwidth controller will drop packets for the remainder of that second. For example, if the bandwidth limit is 1 megabit, and the bandwidth controller counts 1 million bits gone by in 1/2 a second, it will then drop packets for the remainder of the second. The counter will then reset for the next second. From most evidence we have observed, rate caps enforced by many ISPs use the drop packet method, as it is the least expensive method supported on most basic routers…
Photo Of The Month
11826053_10103359251010943_8461014502151942597_n
North Arapaho Peak

North Arapaho Peak is the king of the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area in the Rocky Mountains just west of our home near Boulder, CO. Not only is it the tallest in the area (13,508 ft), it is also the most difficult non-technical climb.

The route involves an easy hike up to the summit of South Arapaho Peak – and the cruxes of the climb are five unique points along the ridge that connects the two mountains. The 0.75 mile ridge takes nearly an hour to complete in one direction and has significant exposure to falling below. This picture is from the ridge, looking down on Arapaho Glacier – a protected area that serves as the watershed for the City of Boulder.
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DDoS Attacker Caught in the Act

August 4, 2015 — netequalizer

Before the telescope, planets and stars were just dots of light to the human eye. Before the invention of X-rays, and the MRI, doctors often could not determine the cause of a problem until a person was in an autopsy room.

Today, there is no reason to remain blind to DDoS and hacking intrusions.

This morning I got a text message from our training engineer at a customer site. “Just stopped a Chinese DDoS attack at the #### school.”

Our training engineer was not even doing a security audit. He was simply walking through the features of our product. He had scrolled over to our DDoS monitoring tool, and right away this attack popped out. It was as clear as a large cancerous tumor in an MRI. He noticed an outside entity was bombarding the customer link with all kinds of queries.

The attacker stood out because our DDoS tool identifies uninvited queries, as well as gives you a count of how often they are hitting your enterprise. Our engineer then checked the source of the incoming IP, and thus removed any lingering doubt that this was a hostile attack. The requests were originating from China, which was not an expected source of traffic on this school’s network.

This wasn’t yet a full-scale DDoS attack, but the warning signs were clear. The attacker happened to be hitting port 22, probing for login vulnerability on all the servers inside the school. From the frequency of the incoming requests, it was obviously a bot. Combining the frequency of hits with the fact that it was an uninvited outside IP address, it stood out like a sore thumb in our DDoS monitor (easily flagged). Once identified, the IT administrator at the school was then able to block the IP, averting any further shenanigans from this hacker.

In everyday life, we’re able to identify warning signs and act accordingly for our own protection. For example, if a person showed up at your front door wearing a ski mask with an AK-47, you would likely not let them in, right? The threat would be obvious. The point is it should not be expensive or impractical for the average layman to also easily spot a security risk on a network. You just need a tool that exposes them.

You Also Might Like

Firewall Recipe for DDoS Attack Prevention and Mitigation

Posted in DDoS. 1 Comment »

Dear Comcast, Please Stop Slowing my iOS Update

July 22, 2015 — netequalizer

Last week I was forced to re-load my iPad from scratch. So I fired it up and went through the routine that wipes it clean and re-loads the entire OS from the Apple cloud.  As I watched the progress moniker it slowly climbed from 1 hour, then 2 hours, then all the way up to 23 hours –  and then it just stayed there. Now I know the iOS, or whatever they call it on the iPad, is big, but 23 hours big?  I double-checked the download throughput on my NetEqualizer status screen, and sure enough, it was only running at about 60 to 100kbs, no where near my advertised Business Class 20 megabits. So I did a little experiment. I turned on my VPN tunnel, unplugged my iPad for a minute, and then took some steps to hide my DNS (so Comcast had no way to see my DNS requests).  I then restarted my update and sure enough it sped up to about 10 megabits.

To make sure I was not imagining anything I repeated the test.

Without VPN  (slow)

With VPN (fast)

So what is going here, does the VPN make things go faster?   No not really, but it does prevent Comcast from recognizing my iOS update from Apple and singling it out for slower bandwidth.

Why does Comcast (allegedly) shape my download from Apple?

The long story behind this basically boils down to this: it is likely that Comcast really does not have a big enough switch going out to the Internet to support the deluge of bandwidth needed when a group of subscribers all try to update their devices at once.  Especially during peak hours!  Therefor, in order to keep basic services from becoming slow, they single out a few big hitters such as iOS updates.

Posted in Commentary and Editorials, Network Speed. 1 Comment »

NetEqualizer News: July 2015

July 14, 2015 — netequalizer

July 2015

Greetings!

Enjoy another issue of NetEqualizer News! This month, we highlight exciting 8.3 Release features, talk about our experience at edAccess’s Vendor Day, encourage you to sign up for a Tech Refresh, spotlight our Hotel & Resorts offering, and update you on the NetEqualizer DDoS monitoring and prevention tool. As always, feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested in NetEqualizer News.
A message from Art…
Art Reisman, CTO – APconnections

Now that summer arthas officially arrived, we are ready for the heat in Colorado. It has been unusually rainy and cloudy here in July so far, and I would like more sunshine please!

Speaking of heat, this month we turn the heat up on several of our new features in 8.3, which are spotlighted below. 8.3 has been G/A since early June, in case you missed it. We also want you to take a Summer Course, no tests involved, and update you on Art’s latest visit back to school, namely the edAccess Conference. And finally, if you need relief from the heat of potential DDoS attacks, you have come to the right place. Our DDoS Monitor and Firewall can help! Read more below.

We love it when we hear back from you – so if you have a story you would like to share with us of how we have helped you, let us know. Email me directly at art@apconnections.net. I would love to hear from you!

Spotlight: 8.3 Release Hot New Features

8.3 has been G/A since early June, and we have been receiving a lot of positive feedback on the new RTR reports. If you have not yet requested 8.3, what are you waiting for? Click here to request an upgrade to 8.3 from our support team.

This month, we are highlighting two features available in 8.3 – Historical and Active Penalty Tracking. We also talk our activated Management Port, a feature available on all new NetEqualizers!

One of the best features in the 8.3 release is increased visibility into how your NetEqualizer is penalizing traffic. We’ve added interfaces to the 8.3 release that allow you to see both the number of penalties enforced on your network historically, as well as all of the current connections that are being penalized.

Historical Penalty Tracking

The General Penalty Reports page under the Traffic History menu shows the number of penalties enforced on your network at a given point in time. This allows you to see when connections on your network were being Equalized.

penalties

Active Penalty Tracking

The View Active Penalties page under the Active Connections menu shows which connections are currently being Equalized along with their current state (New, Increased, or Decreased). This allows you to diagnose any performance issues and also gives you a real time look at how the penalties are being enforced and who they are being enforced on.

activepenalties

Management Port Enabled by Default on all NEW NetEqualizers

We strive to make setting up the NetEqualizer as simple as possible. In this spirit, last year we moved all new NetEqualizers to a four port model, and started using colored port plugs to help our customers identify the ports. Two ports (eth0 and eth1) are used for network traffic, a 3rd port (eth2) is used as a management port, and the 4th port is a spare. We use four colors: 1) blue (WAN), 2) orange (LAN), 3) clear (Management Port) and 4) black (unused).

Prior to 8.3, only a subset of our customers used the Management Port, typically those on VLANs. As of 8.3, we standardized everything so that our NetEqualizer code automatically enables the Management Port, and ALL customers will use this to configure new NetEqualizers. While not a huge change, we think this will make setup just a little bit easier for everyone.

Please note that this feature is only available on new NetEqualizers.

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You can read more about all of the features of the 8.3 Release here in the 8.3 Software Update. If you would like to upgrade to 8.3, just click on the button below to send a request to Support.

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These features are free to all customers with valid NetEqualizer Software and Support. If you are not current with NSS, contact us today!

We Had a Blast at edAccess!

Art recently joined the edAccess Conference in Mercersberg, PA on June 24th for Vendor Day. It was a great event and was well-attended by small schools and colleges (members come from schools with an FTE of under 1,000 students).edaccess

Art got to visit with quite a few current NetEqualizer customers, as you can see in the picture below:

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Art is on the left of the picture and is shown along with representatives from Williston Northampton School, Choate Rosemary Hall, Blair Academy, Mt. St. Mary Academy, Merceyhurst University, Peddie School, and Groton School.

Art would like to personally thank everyone for a great event…

I’d like to thank John Johnson from Williston Northampton School, Rainelle Dixon from Mercersberg Academy and the entire edAccess steering committee for being such wonderful hosts to the vendors. Mercersburg is such a lovely campus and my drive through central Pennsylvania was also relaxing and fun, I took some time on my return stopping at the various waysides, and even took in a game, featuring the Single A Crosscutters of Williamsport.

Thanks Again!

To learn more about NetEqualizer and how we help educational institutions of all sizes, click below.

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Take a Summer Course! Sign Up for a Tech Refresh

Remember those days? If you ever took a summer course, you know that the key was to keep it short, so that you could get back outside. Our NetEqualizer Technical Refresh is short! – only a 30 minute discussion with you and your fellow team members to help get caught up on new NetEqualizer functionality or answer any other questions you have.

The Tech Refresh is great for both new and longtime customers because we are constantly enhancing our product to give you the most value in managing and shaping bandwidth.

To schedule your Tech Refresh, contact us today!

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Tech Refreshes are free to all customers with valid NetEqualizer Software and Support. If you are not current with NSS, contact us today!

Spotlight: GX2 – NetEqualizer Hotel & Resort Industry Wi-Fi Partner

NetEqualizer’s Wi-Fi management partner for the hotel and resort industry, GX2 (formerly Global Gossip), recently attended the HITEC 2015 Conference in Austin, Texas, and brought along the NetEqualizer. According to their website, HITEC is the world’s largest hospitality conference.hmsio

Visitors to GX2’s booth and luncheon were able to review the NetEqualizer offering, and also walk away with some trade show bling (a foam NetEqualizer soccer ball!).

Here is a screenshot of the GX2 application used in the managed Wi-Fi service offering:

gx2_screen

As we have reported here in the past, GX2 utilizes the NetEqualizer as part of their Wi-Fi offering supporting our National Parks. So, if you have a summer vacation planned at Yellowstone, Mammoth, Mount Rushmore, Zion, Crater Lake, or the Grand Canyon, to name a few, chances are you are experiencing the benefits of NetEqualizer’s traffic shaping.

If you are already on our technology, you have part of the solution already in place. If you have ever wanted to learn more about a managed service Wi-Fi solution for the Hotel & Resort industry, you can read about our joint offering (HMSIO).

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NetEqualizer DDoS Tool Gaining Momentum

We keep getting reports of ongoing Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks from our customers, and are glad to hear the NetEqualizer is helping in many cases. If you are interested in chatting about using the NetEqualizer as a DDoS prevention tool please contact us to set up a time to chat.

Note: We do have a consulting charge for custom activation of firewall rules, but the initial consult is free.

The 8.3 Release includes our DDoS Monitor at no extra charge! In addition, our new DDoS Firewall tool (DFW) can be purchased as an add-on module for an additional fee.

ddos

The new DDoS Monitor shows you some basic metrics on the outside intrusion hit rate into your network. It can be used to spot anomalies which would indicate a likely DDoS attack in progress. The DDoS Firewall tools helps to actually thwart the attack.

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Best Of The Blog

Is Your Bandwidth Controller Obsolete Technology?

By Art Reisman – CTO – APconnections

Although not free yet, bandwidth contracts have been dropping in cost faster than a bad stock during a recession. With cheaper bandwidth costs, the question often arises on whether or not an enterprise can do without their trusty bandwidth controller.

Below, we have compiled a list of factors that will determine whether or not Bandwidth Controllers stick around for a while, or go the route of the analog modem, a relic of when people received their Internet from AOL and dial up…
Photo Of The Month
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Cinque Terre, Italy
This picture was taken by one of our staff while walking the trail that connects the five towns of the Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy. These towns are built into the sides of the tall hills that meet the sea. The trek between each town is a manageable 2 miles and provides picturesque views of the water and surrounding forests.
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