StackPath CDN Doubled Capacity With Enhanced Security & User Experience

Last month, StackPath Principal Software Engineer Nathan Moore talked with HostingAdvice.com about how StackPath CDN has been able to continue rapidly building a global network of servers and security services without sacrificing speed or user experience. Since launching in October 2016, StackPath’s content delivery network has nearly tripled points-of-presence (POPs) and doubled capacity. One of the major keys to this extraordinary growth was the acquisition of industry-leading Highwinds CDN in February 2017. Moore has had the distinct challenge of merging the Highwinds system with the existing network, a system Moore designed and managed as the Principal Architect of MaxCDN prior to its acquisition by StackPath in June 2016. The goal for Moore is not just to merge the networks, but to architect a unified platform that is both inherently secure and developer-centric.

StackPath rapidly expands its secure, global content delivery network and improves user experience without sacrificing speed or security.

Security

StackPath has more than 800,000 customers on its platform of secure internet services, including CDN, web application firewall, and platform-level DDoS protection, built at the cloud’s edge. StackPath is differentiated in the market by its security-first approach and has built out an infrastructure with “multiple layers of defenses against multiple types of attacks” to protect their client’s infrastructure, according to Moore. StackPath is positioned to take on a significant share of the growing global IP traffic, which is expected to triple during the next five years. StackPath will become even more crucial in securing the future internet by identifying and blocking malicious traffic through the machine learning engine at the core of their platform, which becomes smarter and more threat-aware with each recorded event.

User Experience

Another key to StackPath’s success has been their strong focus on developers and others who use their services. StackPath is engaging tech startups, founders, CEOs, CTOs, and investors through its Propel program while also working with developers to create and provide education, communication, and support of open-source projects through its Amp program. Additionally, StackPath belongs to and supports a number of online communities, local meet-ups, and industry-related events to talk with the community about their needs and pain points, and provide support and mentorship to the tech community.

Listening to customers has helped StackPath decide where to focus attention, how to minimize customer pain points, and which opportunities to pursue. As Moore explained, “You’re always getting pulled in different directions, and you have to be very nimble when seeing what opportunities and threats exist and how you can respond.” Some of the best features on the platform have been inspired by customers. For example, StackPath added bot protection capabilities to the web application firewall after speaking with customers. Integrating behavioral and reputational algorithms helps the system detect human versus non-human traffic, preventing bots from scanning/attacking vulnerabilities. You can learn “How nixCraft Nixed the Bots with WAF” here.

This blog post references an article originally published on HostingAdvice.com by Laura Stamey on October 6, 2017. You can read more about StackPath’s rapidly expanding global network of servers and security services and the interview with Nathan Moore here.