https://www.ovh.com/us/anti-ddos/mitigation.xml
Every WoW community I've participated in is subject to DDoS attacks. It's inevitable. That being said, I commend Nostalrius on its preemptive measures to ensure a stable environment with infallible uptime.
I assume that the decision to use OVH as your hosting and DDoS provider, you fully understand the limitations of their protection and how these limitations can still cause headaches for you and this community.
Firstly, their DDoS mitigation is not in-line. It is detection-based. This means that when an attack first hits an OVH IP, the OVH IP will definitely go offline. (Assuming that the attack sent is half-decent in volume and/or method). Basically, after OVH's firewall appliances detect that you're being attacked, your IP gets automatically switched to their protected BGP. The speed of this detection and reaction soley depends on the size and method of attack being sent. For example, OVH's protection is probably very good and fast at mitigating a SUDP flood of 1-5Gbps. However, it might react a lot slower to an NTP amplification that's smacking you at 15+Gbps. This potential waiting period for OVH's detection could still cause mass disconnects.
Additionally, all of OVH's mitigation is strictly Layer 4. The link I provided above lists a bunch of different protocols and methods it protects against, but none of them include Layer 7/Application protection. If you get a smart attacker with an actual botnet, which considering the popularity and hype this community already has coming out the door it's more than likely to happen, they can alter packet content on the fly to, as an example, replicate a login request to your website, realm server, etc. This sort of attack would bypass OVH's Layer 4 protection entirely.
So, this all being said. I am curious. Has anything additional been put in place or considered to compensate for what OVH cannot protect against? I plan on no-lifing the HELL out of this server, and I think I speak for everyone else who plans on doing the same when I say, we want a 100 percent stable environment. You guys have put TREMENDOUS amount of effort and time into making this release amazing. Did you cover all your basis?
Thanks and see you in-game!
