Choosing DDoS Protection Services - Factors To Keep In Mind

One of the most common problems that affect networks is something known as the Denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack. It is commonly denoted by the abbreviation DDoS. It essentially means that a particular network resource is cut off for use from its target users. There are many ways in which such DDoS attacks take place. Therefore it is in the interests of the organization or the individual to choose best in class DDoS protection services. There are plenty of sources of information on the Internet as far as information on firms that offer such DDoS protection services are concerned. 

If you can keep a few factors in questions in mind then it will help you choose the best among such firms. Longevity and experience are always two important factors in the industry. This will also give you an accurate picture of the degree of success that such a firm enjoys. It is also important to ascertain their achievements during the time they have been in the industry. Perhaps an easy question to ask to ascertain their achievement would be to request for the kind of DDoS attacks and the number of such attacks that the firm mitigates on a regular basis.

Time duration and bandwidth are also important considerations when choosing the DDoS protection service. Look for robust service level agreements from your DDoS protection service provider so that you know exactly the activation company when you report a DDoS attack.

Normally, DDoS protection services firms work with something known as scrubbing centers which can be distributed all over the globe. And leading firms will give you a commitment for time to activating the service so that your traffic flows through such scrubbing centers.

It is also a good idea to check for the size of the biggest packet per second DDoS attack that the firm has dealt with. While DDoS protection services are offered against or to mitigate several types of DDoS attacks it is important to get information on the largest packet per second attack that the firm has dealt with. It is also important to check the fees or the pricing schedules of such DDoS protection services. Firms can offer a comprehensive monitoring of your websites to protect them from all types of DDoS attacks or they could bring in a pricing schedule which works with a per attack fee. 

You can also ask them about the kind of DDoS protection that they work with. Prevention and control of such DDoS attacks can take place with firewalls, blackholing IP addresses, going in for IPS-based prevention services and using application front-end hardware to name a few. Blackholing is a rather extreme step which involves the attacked IP address to be treated as a non-existent server. This means that every bit of traffic that is then sent to this IP address will actually be routed to a black hole which is a non-existent server. You may like to also check up whether the DDoS protection entails this step.

James is a writer and blogger with 5 years experience.

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