News in Networking: Data Center Hurricane Prep, Gambling with DDoS, and Rural Broadband

This week’s top story picks from the Kentik team.

As the U.S. east coast prepares for Hurricane Irma, those with data centers in the storm’s path are also making efforts to avoid interruptions. Meanwhile, DDoS attackers took a gamble this week, making a hit on popular online poker site America’s Cardroom. The site’s CEO is said to be considering a bounty for information on who was behind the attack. At the same time, a debate has risen on if and how CenturyLink’s plans to acquire Level 3 Communications could affect broadband in rural areas.

Here are those headlines and more:

• Use a Data Center in Irma’s Path? Here’s How Not to Lose Your Data (Data Center Knowledge)
  With Hurricane Irma continuing on its path towards the U.S., major data center providers are preparing. According to the article, offering their experience from recent Hurricane Harvey, CyrusOne “switched to on-site generator power at one point.” Meanwhile, Equinix, Data Foundry, Digital Realty Trust, Internap, and Netrality “all reported that their Houston data centers had not experienced any service interruptions.”
• Intent-based Networking is Needed to Run More Complex Networks (TechTarget)
  The debate continues over why and how intent-based networking systems will work. TechTarget reports on expert input about whether these systems are needed to manage networks of the future that connect data center, public clouds and IoT.
• The Autonomous Network Is the Endgame for Telecom (Light Reading)
  “The immediate goal of automation is to create ‘autonomous processes’ — in which the network does what it needs to do without human intervention. That’s been an aspiration of telecom architects and solution providers for literally decades,” says Light Reading founder and CEO Steve Saunders in an opinion piece.
• Google BGP Routing Blunder Sent Japan’s Internet Dark (The Register)
  A typo at Google is likely to blame for a border gateway protocol (BGP) issue that took down a large chuck of Japan’s Internet connectivity in recent weeks. According to The Register, “The trouble began when The Chocolate Factory ‘leaked’ a big route table to Verizon.”
• DDoS’d Online Poker Site CEO Contemplating Posting Reward to Find Attacker (SC Magazine)
  The online poker site America’s Cardroom was hit earlier this week with a DDoS attack timed to disrupt a major tournament prompting the company CEO to consider putting a 10-bitcoin bounty out to discover if the attack was launched by a competitor.
• Akamai Warns of Large DDoS Attacks from Spike DDoS Toolkit (Press Release)
  Akamai recently released a new threat advisory to warn enterprises of “a high-risk threat of powerful distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from the Spike DDoS toolkit. With this toolkit, malicious actors are building bigger DDoS botnets by targeting a wider range of Internet-capable devices.”
• Rural Broadband Expansion At Issue in CenturyLink-Level 3 Deal (Morning Consult)
  CenturyLink recently announced plans to acquire Level 3 Communications for $34 billion, which would make it competitive with telecom giant AT&T. However, according to Morning Consult, people opposed to the deal say it would “hurt broadband access for rural providers by eliminating access to wholesale rates for critical fiber connections to the internet backbone.”
• One Man’s DIY Internet Service Connects Isolated Marin County Hamlet (San Francisco Chronicle)
  Also on the rural broadband front, kudos go to Brandt Kuykendall, a Marin Country, California resident. Kuykendall’s daughter needed fast, reliable internet access for school, but that didn’t exist in their neighborhood. Instead, Kuykendall decided to DIY a telecom.
• How Kentik Helps Operators Turn Network Data into Sales (Light Reading)
  The team here at Kentik recently caught up with Carol Wilson of Light Reading. In a new story, Wilson reports on our efforts: “Network operators are becoming more adept at using their network traffic data in a variety of ways: To assure service delivery; bolster security; and improve customer experience, to name just a few. Now, one network intelligence specialist, Kentik Technologies Inc., is explaining to operators how they can leverage its platform, the Kentik Detect Netflow-based network traffic intelligence system, to also identify sales prospects.”

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