dns services news

2013.03.24 - http redirect service

Clients can now take advantage of our new http redirect service to redirect user requests from any name in their domains to any other destination. The high performance service is operated on multiple geodns enabled servers to ensure the best possible response time for users. Sites inplemented on cloud services and content distribution networks requiring the use of CNAMES can now be transparently available at the domain name apex.

Complete details are on the http redirect service page.

2012.10.26 - earn free dns service credits

All existing and new clients are now eligible for free dns services credits through the new account referral programme. Accounts are automatically enabled for participation without further action. Participation in the programme is completely optional.

Complete details are on the free dns services credits page.

2011.10.11 - additional point of presence

An additional POP has been added to the edgedirector dns services network.

The expanded dns service footprint offers faster dns responses for the APAC service region by reducing network latency for request originating from the region. It also improves the redundancy and resiliency of the edgedirector network. The reliability of failover testing is additionally safeguarded by adding yet another point of view to network testing.

Existing users should consult their daily reports or the control panel for the applicable name server information to be added at their domain registrars.

2011.09.26 - expanded wildcard support

The ability to use wildcards at arbitrary sub-levels is now complete and available in production.

Users can now specify distinct wildcards at an arbitrary level that apply to that level only. The catchall wildcard behaviour is retained so that customers using them are not affected.

If you have two wildcard records:

*.example.com
*.xyz.example.com

Queries for abc.xyz.example.com will be answered using the *.xyz.example.com wildcard record.

Queries for mno.example.com and def.pqr.mno.example.com would be answered using the *.example.com wildcard record.

Note that the more specific wildcard only applies to queries with exactly the same number of dotted segments. And, the non-wildcarded labels must match. It is also a prerequisite that the generic wildcard record exists when the more distinct wildcard is to be used.

2011.08.04 - anycast and unicast dns speed test results

edgedirector has recently completed a comparison of anycast and unicast dns timing tests. The results demonstrate that there is no real world performance advantage for anycast users. The full results can be read here.

Related technical background material may be found here.

2011.02.22 - geodns and global load balance for cname and aaaa dns records

Geodns and global load balancing is now available for CNAME and AAAA records. Setup is similar to the existing procedure for geodns on A records.

Support for geodns with CNAME records was specifically implemented for users of CDN services requiring the use of CNAME records. Where possible, geodns should continue to be implemented via A and AAAA records. A single global CNAME record will automatically benefit from geodns settings in the matching A and AAAA dns records.

2011.02.21 - ipv6 aaaa dns record failover

Global failover and hot spare support is now available for ipv6 AAAA records. Adminstrators can set AAAA records to participate in failover sets through the testing and monitoring control panel.

2011.02.01 - european point of presence in full service

The new facilities in Amsterdam will be available for client use in full production mode as of 2011.02.11 01:00 GMT. The additional dns server names will be noted in daily report emails and the control panel.

Clients will need to update the name server records at their domain registrars by adding the new server name that applies to each domain. This should be done after 2011.02.11 01:00 GMT. But, it should be done within a reasonable time after that. The benefit of updating your records is faster response times for queries originating in Europe, and greater redundancy of dns services.

There will be no interruption in service or availability of your dns records as long as the noted start time is respected. The only noticeable effect will be that dns tests performed at dns testing sites will note the return of a NS record that is not listed at the parent servers of your domain.

No action is required in the edgedirector control panel as the domains will be updated automatically. The Amsterdam location has been participating in production data replication for the last two weeks in preparation for a seamless upgrade.

Placement was carefully selected with a view to reachability of all major carrier networks in Europe. The new facility will also be one of the network test points for the health monitoring of client servers using failover services.

The previous minimum response time from Europe to the nearest edgedirector server was 100 milliseconds. The response time will now be as low as 1 millisecond for the closest locations.

A recent third party survey of network round trip response time showed the following timings for a number of European centers:

    Amsterdam       1.0 
    Groningen       5.3 

    Antwerp        13.1 

    Munich         15.5 
    Cologne         9.2 

    Stockholm      36.3 
    Copenhagen     13.4 
    Oslo           21.4 

    Dublin         18.4 
    Glasgow        19.0 
    London          8.5 
    Manchester     15.2 

    Madrid         31.8 

    Padova         29.3 

    Lille          12.8 
    Paris          14.9 

    Zurich         22.0 

    Moscow         46.5 

    Kharkov        77.1 

    Vilnius        35.2 

    Bucharest      39.0 

    Lisbon         50.2 

    Gdansk         27.3 
    Krakow         30.1 

(all times in milliseconds)

The timing results are typical of the results obtained from multiple tests on multiple days observed during the acceptance testing period. In addition to improving performance, the new facility adds further redundancy, diversity and capacity to the edgedirector network.

press release

2011.01.12 - new european point of presence

Since December, we have been working on our new european point of presence. The first tasks were to configure the base operating environments and test for operational stability. This is now complete to our satisfaction.

As a production burn-in, additional failover monitoring commenced as of today from the Amsterdam location. The addition of this test point to the parallel monitoring system means that the possibility of false postives is reduced even further. Sites that firewall the monitoring probes should open their firewalls to the new range. The daily email reports will contain the specific ip ranges for client network administrators. As the server monitoring is performed in parallel, there is no immediate impact if the firewall cannot be configured immediately, but it should be done for best results.

The next step will be the announcement of the new dns server names to be added as name servers for your domains.

2010.06.15 - detailed dns query usage statistics now available

In addition to total daily query consumption, detailed dns query usage by domain is now available for viewing in the control panel. The available views are current day, prior full day, current calendar month, and prior calendar month. Please note that all times are relative to GMT.

2010.06.03 - server side load balance tuning

Finer grained control is now available for servers responding to http or https monitoring. For further details, please see: server side load control.

2010.05.28 - monitoring logs available

In addition to alerts, dns administrators can now view test failures in the control panel. The detailed test failure logs are available for the preceding six months.

2010.05.01 - api and bulk record input

It is now possible to manage dns records programatically using a dns records management api. The api operates over the http protocol. Security is implemented using http digest authentication.

Bulk record input is available in the control panel. This facility accepts either csv text files, or zone files in the bind format. Zone files are translated to the csv equivalent for manual review before final commit.

Additional details may be found on the dns records api and bulk input page.

2009.09.07 - server additions

An additional authoritative dns server is now in service. It is located at the Equinix Ashburn data centre. As before, all servers are in geographically diverse locations. Colocation facilities are provided by our good friends at rackco.com.

The name of the new dns server appears in the control panel. It has also been forwarded in the daily usage reports.

To use this server, subscribers should add the new dns server name to the list of name servers that are authoritative for their domain at their domain registrar.

All existing dns records have already been populated at the new dns server. This was done after the new server was integrated into the backend. Therefore, there is no need to do anything in the edgedirector control panel. The dns records are fully synchronised and available. The only action required is to add the name server name to your domain records at the registrar.

The new server runs the same source code base as the existing servers with one significant difference. The difference is that the platform is now completely 64 bit executable code running on x64 hardware. In the future, all deployed servers will be 64 bit configurations.

The new server has been acting as a name server for our other domains prior to this announcement. There have been no observed errors or anomalies.

As in the past, we will continue to employ a rolling upgrade strategy. That is, only a single server will run the newest version of the code. This safeguards our clients from complete dns service outages due to software defects. There will always be dns services available from servers running a known good version.

In addition, all servers have archived copies of the recent versions that have run on that particular server. These archives are maintained to backout/rollback from version upgrades.

source: edgedirector.com