CloudFlare Adopts Solarflare’s SolarSecure Software for Active Protection Against DDoS Attacks

IRVINE, Calif. - April 9, 2014 - PRLog -- Solarflare, the leader in application-intelligent networking software and hardware, today announced that CloudFlare, the web performance and security company, selected Solarflare to strengthen its advanced DDoS protection services and accelerate CloudFlare’s next-generation global network. By deploying Solarflare’s SolarSecure^TM Filter Engine along with Solarflare 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) server adapters, CloudFlare builds an extra layer of protection into their network at the server level, increasing headroom and responsiveness in the face of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, making the web safer and faster.

CloudFlare’s global network makes websites twice as fast, protects them from attacks and ensures they are always online. The company’s web security and web performance solutions enable a faster, safer, better Internet for business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce. By choosing Solarflare, CloudFlare can deliver a more robust, scalable DDoS service and increase the performance and lower the response time of its hosted DNS services.

CloudFlare selected Solarflare based on superior performance. In SYN flood tests, Solarflare’s SolarSecure^TM Filter Engine performed 180% better than the competition.Solarflare hardware and software delivered 16 million packets per second – at 60 bytes per packet, the typical size of a SYN packet in a SYN-flood attack – compared to the next best alternative, which delivered just 9 million packets per second.

Also, during DDoS benchmark tests, the web server powered by the SolarSecure Filter Engine performed eight times faster than a standard Nginx server. The SolarSecure-enabled web server was able to withstand an attack rate of 120,000 connections/second before performance began to degrade. By contrast, the web server without SolarSecure was able to withstand an attack rate of less than 15,000 connections per second.

“We are continuously expanding the size and capabilities of our network to deal with an escalating number of attacks. Solarflare provides an additional layer of security at the server level, building depth, performance and responsiveness into our network in the face of DDoS attacks,” said Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudFlare. “When you couple Solarflare’s technology roadmap with their willingness to work closely with our development team on security features, Solarflare makes the ideal strategic partner.”

Solarflare’s SolarSecure Filter Engine delivers real-time, active protection for networked servers. The Filter Engine equips the server to block malicious attacks before they penetrate the server operating system or disrupt services. The product enables CloudFlare to implement its security policies on the Filter Engine in user space or the kernel driver to protect against DDoS attacks or other advanced persistent threats. The filters can be updated dynamically and used to block, rate limit, log or alert on suspicious traffic.

“Recent highly-publicized security breaches demonstrate that assailants are targeting servers where business critical applications and sensitive data are stored, exposing network vulnerabilities,” said Russell Stern, CEO of Solarflare. “With our SolarSecure software, network servers can capture, identify and block malicious traffic before it penetrates either the operating system or applications on network servers – all without requiring any additional hardware. We are pleased to work in tandem with CloudFlare to boost the performance and security of their next-generation global network.”

About Solarflare

Solarflare is the leading provider of application-intelligent networking I/O software and hardware that accelerate, monitor and secure network data. The company's solutions are widely used in scale-out server environments such as electronic trading, high performance computing, cloud, virtualization and big data. Solarflare’s products are available from leading distributors and value-added resellers, as well as from Dell, HP and IBM. Solarflare is headquartered in Irvine, California, and operates R&D facilities in Cambridge, UK and New Delhi, India. For more information, please visit www.solarflare.com

About CloudFlare

CloudFlare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) makes sites twice as fast, protects them from attacks, ensures they are always online, and makes it simple to add web apps with a single click. CloudFlare supercharges websites regardless of size or platform with no need to add hardware, install software, or change a line of code. The CloudFlare community gets stronger as it grows; every new site makes the network smarter. Thanks to our awesome sauce technology, every month hundreds of millions of people experience a faster, safer, better Internet. CloudFlare was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer, named the Most Innovative Network & Internet Technology Company of the Year for 2011 and 2012 by The Wall Street Journal, and ranked among the world's 50 most innovative companies of 2012 by Fast Company. CloudFlare is based in San Francisco, California, USA.

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