Ask HN: Geo-balancing DNS providers?
1 comments
It's cheap and easy to use a distributed network of DNS servers with locations around the world. There's much less network latency when the edge locations are closer to the end user. There are dozens of good DNS providers out there. We currently use DNS Made Easy, and we're thinking about using Amazon Route 53 as well.
If you have multiple web servers servers in different locations, you might be thinking of "Geo-DNS" -- this actually directs the end user to the nearest web server. There are pros and cons to this approach, namely that the end user may be using an intermediary DNS server that's not actually very close to the user. For example, you might end up sending all Comcast users to your east coast USA server, no matter where in the USA they actually are. I'm not familiar with providers who offer this service, but here's a Server Fault thread on the matter: http://serverfault.com/questions/30567/geo-dns-providers
If you have multiple web servers servers in different locations, you might be thinking of "Geo-DNS" -- this actually directs the end user to the nearest web server. There are pros and cons to this approach, namely that the end user may be using an intermediary DNS server that's not actually very close to the user. For example, you might end up sending all Comcast users to your east coast USA server, no matter where in the USA they actually are. I'm not familiar with providers who offer this service, but here's a Server Fault thread on the matter: http://serverfault.com/questions/30567/geo-dns-providers
Thanks Ryan, DNS Made Easy looks like exactly what we need.
Our server has been able to handle tons of hits (like 6 requests per second at peak) but the DNS acts flimsy under pressure. We just have the server handling it at the moment.