NETSCOUT > Case Studies > Covad Communications Ramps Up Network Security and Performance with Peakflow® SP

Covad Communications Ramps Up Network Security and Performance with Peakflow® SP

Company Size

1,000+

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Peakflow SP
ASERT
Active Threat Feed (ATF)
Fingerprint Sharing Alliance (FSA)

Tech Stack

IP flow technology

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Customer Satisfaction

Technology Category

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Cybersecurity

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

Covad Communications is a leading service provider in the United States, offering broadband, voice over IP (VoIP), and wireless services to more than 57 million homes and businesses in 235 major U.S. markets. As the owner and operator of the largest national broadband network, Covad handles multiple gigabits of traffic daily. Ensuring the reliability and efficiency of its vast nationwide network is crucial for the company. This means that the service provider has zero tolerance for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, botnets, and other security threats that can degrade network performance and jeopardize customer relationships.

The Challenge

Covad Communications, a leading U.S. service provider, faced the dual challenges of network security and traffic engineering. The company needed to proactively defend against DDoS attacks and optimize network performance. The rising number of network attacks was a significant challenge for the service provider. Customers typically held their providers accountable for such external attacks, viewing them as problems within the provider network and equating them with poor service. Additionally, the extra costs due to attack traffic could add up to tens of thousands of dollars a month. Therefore, the ability to quickly identify and shut down these attacks was key to both customer loyalty and cost-effective operations.

The Solution

To mitigate these threats and optimize network performance, Covad deployed Peakflow SP—a single solution for its network security and traffic engineering needs. Peakflow SP leverages IP flow technology to provide pervasive, cost-effective network visibility. It also features comprehensive threat management that enables providers, like Covad, to surgically mitigate DDoS and zero-day threats before they impact business services. Covad also relies on the unique “fingerprint sharing” feature in Peakflow SP to accelerate attack detection and mitigation. Fingerprints are network behavioral patterns of known or emerging threats. These fingerprints are created by the Arbor Security Engineering & Response Team (ASERT) and distributed via a service called Active Threat Feed (ATF).

Operational Impact

Faster detection and mitigation minimize the impact of DDoS attacks on target customers and reduce costly collateral damage.
Superior traffic engineering optimizes network performance and lowers cost.
Through its network-wide visibility, Peakflow SP eliminates the guesswork and streamlines the attack mitigation process.
The Fingerprint Sharing Alliance (FSA) expedites the whole threat mitigation process, allowing Covad to immediately reach the right people at the right ISP, send a fingerprint for their review and implement a black-hole.
Peakflow SP gives Covad the traffic visibility needed to engineer its network for lower costs and higher performance.