Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : DNS server going down

[L0ST]

Hello.

I have a question that has been bothering me the past couple of days:

Lets say I have a domain, it is pointed to my DNS serevr that resolves to my web server. What would happen if my DNS server goes down?

I did a basic testing - hit one of my DNS servers down and the test domain was still resolving, however I asume it might have been some kind of cache or something. However when I sued a website to check if it is online, it said it is, when the DNS server itself was down. How does that happen?

[MikeDVB]

If a name server is down, it won't respond to DNS queries (pretty much common sense). Now most ISPs and computers do caching of DNS queries so it's possible for a DNS server to be down for a short bit and most people to still be able to get the DNS results they need but I would not rely upon it.

If you have the capability and need it, it's best to cluster DNS to at least two separate servers so if one is having issues - DNS can still resolve. This is especially important when you are using third party mail services.

[crookservers]

Actually DNS servers are not updated instantly everywhere in the world, it takes some to be updated on all servers. If you tried to stop DNS server and your website was accessible, this means they were not updated on the server you were connecting from.

[L0ST]

I see. I thought so myself.

Can you offer me a professional company that specialises in DNS services. I have seen a lot of them, I just cant find a good one right now, doing some googling atm.

[cd/home]

Originally Posted by L0ST

Can you offer me a professional company that specialises in DNS services.

Heres a good one http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/

[SajanP]

Amazon's Route53 is what we're using right now and it's pretty amazing. They just added a GUI to their management console too. It's damn cheap and works well.

Another big name for DNS is DynDNS.

[BuffaloBill]

Originally Posted by cd/home

Heres a good one http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/

DNS Made Easy just got done fighting a 200+ Gbps attack. I'm not sure what other DNS provider in the world is able to handle something like that. Very impressive how it was handled IMHO.

Originally Posted by sajanNOPPIX

Amazon's Route53 is what we're using right now and it's pretty amazing. They just added a GUI to their management console too. It's damn cheap and works well.
Another big name for DNS is DynDNS.

DNS Made Easy is still cheaper than Amazon's Route53 most of the time and they actually have a few more features (vanity DNS, templates, bulk modifications, sub-users, DNS failover, etc. , etc. etc.)
If you do not need those extra features though then Route53 is a great option since they do have a flexible monthly pricing.

DynDNS is super expensive (about $30 per domain per year) and has recently had downtime. So that does not seem like a valid option for people to use.

[Stream101]

I really have to recommend http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com. We've used them for years for high profile clients. Then we dumped our DNS servers and moved over!

[kpmedia]

If you have have a couple of domains, Namecheap's DNS (available to current domain customers) is good. Same for ZoneEdit. Both of those are free options. You can also build your own network of DNS servers, using 128MB VPS for $10-20/year.

@Stream101 - That explains the DNS issue from about 24 hours ago! (I didn't realize you're using DNSMadeEasy for the DNS service.) Good to know.

[SajanP]

Well hot damn then. I may have to reconsider Route53 and looking DNSMadeEasy.