‘Web reverse proxy’ or, in short, ‘reverse proxy’, is a server that receives the client’s request, and then requests it indirectly from the web server. When the proxy is strong enough, it acts as an effective DDoS layer, as it reduces the attack surface and, specifically, mitigates virtually all the network attacks that never reach the protected server.
Reverse proxy commonly comes in tandem with caching, which reduces even further the attack surface and, in particular, also blocks application attacks.
Related entries: Reverse Proxy and Caching DDoS Mitigation Technology