Countering the spread of the coronavirus has served as an impetus for the transformation of business processes around the world. The most effective measure to combat COVID-19 was isolation, which forced people to switch to remote work and education. This has already led to a general increase in Internet traffic and the geographical redistribution of its flows. Peer-to-peer centers vying with each other report record traffic volumes. The load on the network is growing due to:
- a surge in the popularity of online entertainment: streaming services and online games,
- increasing the number of users of platforms for distance learning,
- increased use of videoconferencing for business and informal communication.
Standard "office" traffic from business centers goes to the networks of operators that serve individuals. In the DDoS-Guard network, we are already seeing a decrease in the traffic of B2B providers from among our clients against the backdrop of a general increase.
In this post, we will take a look at the traffic situation in Europe and Russia, share our own data, give a forecast for the near future and tell you what, in our opinion, is worth doing now.
Traffic statistics - Europe
Here is how the overall traffic volume has changed in a number of major European peering centers since the beginning of March: , , , , . Below are the relevant charts.
On average, in 2019, video streaming accounted for 60 to 70% of all Internet traffic, both mobile and stationary. According to video conferencing application traffic (Skype, WebEx, Teams, Zoom) has doubled in the last two months. Traffic associated with entertainment and mostly informal communication in social networks. networks also increased significantly β +25%. The number of users of online games and cloud gaming services doubled in the third week of March alone. .
As the first to reduce the load on the networks of operators YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and Disney will reduce the maximum bitrate (quality) of video in the EU in response to the call of European Commissioner Thierry Breton. Expected that for at least the next 30 days, . In France, the launch of the Disney Plus streaming service has been postponed from March 24 to April 7. .
Traffic statistics - Russia
The transition to remote work and education in Russia occurred later than in Europe as a whole, and a sharp increase in the use of Internet channels began in the second week of March. In some Russian universities, traffic has grown 5-6 times due to the transition to distance learning. General traffic in
In the DDoS-GUARD network, we are registering even greater growth: since March 9, daily traffic has increased by 3-5% per day and has grown by 10% in 40 days compared to the average for February. For the next 10 days, daily traffic fluctuated around this value, with the exception of Monday - on March 26, a peak of 168% was reached compared to the same period in February.
By the last weekend of March, traffic dropped by 10% and amounted to 130% of the February figures. This is apparently due to the fact that some Russians celebrated the last weekend before quarantine in nature. Our forecast until the end of the week: stable growth to the values ββof 155% of the February values ββand more.
The redistribution of the load due to the transition to remote work can also be seen in the traffic of our clients. The screenshot below shows a graph with the traffic of our client, a B2B provider. During the month, incoming traffic decreased, even despite the increased frequency of DDoS attacks, while outgoing traffic, on the contrary, increased. The business centers served by the provider are primarily traffic consumers, and the decrease in incoming data reflects their closure. Outgoing traffic has increased due to the fact that the demand for content that is hosted or produced on its network has increased.
*The screenshot shows a fragment of the interface of the DDoS-GUARD client's personal account
The upward trend in content consumption is well demonstrated by the traffic of our other client, a video content generator. At certain points in time, there are bursts of outgoing traffic up to + 50% (similar to the publication of βhotβ content).
*The screenshot shows a fragment of the interface of the DDoS-GUARD client's personal account
And this is how the increase in web traffic that is processed in our network looks like:
In the CNN, the increase is up to 68%. The difference between traffic sent to site visitors (above zero) and traffic received from client web servers (below zero) is growing due to the increase in the amount of static content (CDN) cached on our network.
In general, online cinemas in the Russian Federation, unlike their Western counterparts, . Amediateka, Kinopoisk HD, Megogo and other services temporarily expanded the amount of free content or made the subscription free of charge without fear of an excessive load on the infrastructure. NVIDIA also provided Russian gamers with .
All this creates a significant load on the networks of Russian telecom operators and, in some cases, is accompanied by degradation of the quality of services.
Forecasts and recommendations
By order of Sergei Sobyanin from this Monday (March 30) is introduced for all residents of Moscow, regardless of age. In fact, leaving the apartment / house is allowed only in case of emergency. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin all regions to follow the example of Moscow. At the time of publication of the article, 26 regions of Russia have already introduced a regime of self-isolation. Therefore, we expect that this week the traffic growth will be even more significant. Perhaps we will reach 200% of the average daily traffic in February, due to the mass consumption of content.
As a quick solution to broadband access, providers will actively use DPI to deprioritize certain categories of traffic, such as BitTorrent. This will allow, at least for a while, to ensure the stable operation of critical (according to the provider) client applications. Other services will compete for channel resources. In such conditions, any custom protocol and tunnels (GRE and IPIP) as a means of delivering traffic will work extremely unstable. If you do not have the opportunity to abandon tunnels in favor of dedicated channels, then it makes sense to try to spread the routes through several operators, distributing the load.
Conclusion
In the long term, the load on the networks of operators will continue to increase due to the massive transition of companies to remote work. The situation is clearly illustrated by the securities market. For example, have nearly doubled in the past two months (NASDAQ). The most logical solution for operators would be to expand external channels, including through additional private peerings (PNI) with those ASs with which traffic is growing the fastest. Under the current conditions, operators are simplifying the conditions and reducing the requirements for PNI connection, so now is the time to submit requests. We, in turn, are always open to suggestions (AS57724 DDoS-Guard).
Moving a business to the clouds will increase the workload and increase the importance of the availability of services that ensure its functioning. Under such conditions, the potential economic damage from DDoS attacks will increase. The daily growth of legitimate traffic volumes (see the graph of content consumption growth above) leaves providers with less and less free channel capacity to receive attacks without affecting client services. It is difficult to give forecasts with specific figures, but it is already clear that the current situation will lead to the growth of the corresponding shadow market and an increase in the number of DDoS attacks motivated by unfair competition in all sectors of the economy. We recommend that you do not wait for the "perfect storm" in the operator's network, but take measures to improve the fault tolerance of your networks/services already now. The increased demand for services in the field of information security, including protection against DDoS attacks, may provoke a rise in prices and a change in the methods of billing and various kinds of speculation.
During this difficult time, our company decided to contribute to the fight against the consequences of the pandemic: we are ready to temporarily increase the commits (prepaid bandwidth) and available channel capacity without additional payment for both existing and new customers. With the corresponding request, you can contact via ticket or e-mail [email protected]. If you have a website, you can order and connect our .
Against the background of the isolation trend, the development of online services and network infrastructure will continue.
Source: habr.com