Hi there,

I am currently hosting my site at two different companies. I did this because I wanted to switch and to test my site thoroughly at the new hoster (by using a static IP instead of my domain) before switching for good.

Now I am not so sure I want to switch totally. I sort of have my foot in both hosters and am not sure I want to let my old one go entirely.

Anyway I was wondering if there was a way to quickly switch the domain record DNS name entries from one to the other host? I have read that .BIZ, .NAME and such can affect a switch in ten minutes as oppossed to the usual 24-48 hours for .COM, .ORG, etc..

I guess what I am asking is...

If I want my site to be hosted on one main hoster while reserving a second one as emergency backup (kinda like a RAID solution ;)) is there a way to quickly switch to the backup hoster in case of a total service interruption at the main one? Quickly?

Thanks for any insight or input.

Carlos

If your relying on DNS fully then yes it does take some time, this is for the DNS changes to propergate. Again it's not all up to the domain registrar but the series of DNS servers from that point. It could take place quickly, it could not.

My suggestion would to use an outside DNS service like EasyDNS. Here you can switch DNS records from one host to the other (within 10 minutes) or use a round-robin affect (try both sites, if one fails, goto the other). We do for some customers here at GearHost using iControl.

Just my 2¢.

Thanks Ryank.

But I am wondering how is it that a DNS routing service can affect a change so quickly if changing the DNS entries in my domain record through my registrar does not? Doesn't the DNS routing service have to propogate it's changes around the Internet too?

From what you are saying I gather that it is better to use one of these DNS routing services for $5.00-10.00 US per year than to wait for the usual propagation of DNS changes made through a registrar?

Carlos

Regardless of who hosts your DNS, whenever you make a change it still has to be updated on the root nameservers (which are not updated in realtime), and it has to spread through all of the routers out there, and those also don't update in realtime.

Originally posted by Carlos123
But I am wondering how is it that a DNS routing service can affect a change so quickly if changing the DNS entries in my domain record through my registrar does not? Doesn't the DNS routing service have to propogate it's changes around the Internet too?

Yes they must propergate their records too but that's when you set the TTL on the zone record to every 15 minutes or so or the domain zone serial number. This tells other DNS servers that when a change is made to update their records as well. While MOST ALL DNS servers will respect this there are some that won't but this would be your best bet in the event your site goes down.

I guess my main question would be why not find a reliable host with good uptime? What a simple question huh ;).

I'd look into ultradns - they may be pricey, but they have a service that will do exactly what you want - and it propogates extremely quickly.

ZoneEdit also have a service like this, and for your first 5 domains it's free:

http://www.zoneedit.com

I thought there was a way to do this. Such as if you have two hosts. Set the name servers as.

ns1.host1.com
ns2.host1.com
ns1.host2.com
ns2.host2.com

If it goes down it will revert to the second host. I am problably wrong, but i may be right :)