| To protect its flagship Web site from viruses and denial-of-service attacks, Microsoft has asked for help from an unusual place: a network of Linux-based servers.
According to Internet security and services firm Netcraft, the software giant has changed the DNS of Microsoft.com so that requests are directed not to its own network but to the Akamai cache servers. Akamai is a network of 15,000 Linux-based servers in locations around the world.
Using Linux in any aspect of its operations is highly unusual for Microsoft, because the open-source OS is a chief competitor for market share.
"There's a nice bit of irony there," Yankee Group analyst Matthew Kovar told NewsFactor. However, he noted, the benefits of the changed hosting for Microsoft do not actually reflect the relative worth of the Windows vs. Linux operating systems, so the move should not be interpreted that way.
Tough Period
August has been an extremely challenging month for Microsoft, due to viruses that exploit security flaws in the company's software. The company had to handle three major virus attacks, and the Microsoft.com site was disabled on two occasions due to distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Kovar noted that Microsoft changed its DNS routing for its Windowsupdate.com site to take it offline as a defensive move against the virus attacks. This was necessary because the site's address was "hardcoded into the attack," he said.
Netcraft Data
But the Microsoft.com site is too essential to the company's business to take offline, so the company apparently chose another option for security reasons.
"Microsoft switched [to Akamai] at the same time as the Blaster worm [attacked]," Netcraft director Mike Prettejohn told NewsFactor, noting the software giant made the change on August 15th.
Microsoft continues to use the Akamai network, Prettejohn said.
Although using a Linux-based network represents a tweak to Microsoft's corporate pride -- "on the other hand, it's a very good way to defend against distributed denial-of-service attacks," due to the breadth of the Akamai network, Prettejohn said. To the best of his knowledge, the large content distribution networks all use Linux, he noted.
Windows on Linux
The Netcraft data reports that the Microsoft site runs "Microsoft-IIS/6.0 on Linux," but that is an impossible combination -- the Microsoft server application is not compatible with the Linux OS.
But Netcraft explains this discrepancy: "Web servers that operate behind a caching system, load balancer, reverse proxy server or firewall may sometimes report the operating system of the intermediate machine," the site states.
Netcraft also notes this discrepancy may be because the site, "as in the case of Walmart.com, has been configured to send a misleading signature."
Value in Akamai
"Akamai is the leading provider of optimized content distribution," Kovar said. "It's really the best way for any content provider to distribute content." The Microsoft decision to utilize Akamai is more about effective content broadcasting than a need for an alternate operating system, he said.
The Microsoft switch to Akamai may very well have been related to the attacks, Kovar said. But even if the Akamai network was based on Windows servers, Microsoft still may have made the switch to the caching network.
Microsoft representatives were not immediately available for comment.
Source: News Factor | |
