Manage DNS

[djdez]

Hi Guys,

Are any of you using another company to manage your dns other then your hosting provider?

If so, have you seen any noticeable benefits?

[JustMe]

Greetings:

I would never ever never let my hosting provider have control over my DNS, no matter who they are.

There are SERIOUS security issues that one can avoid by having a 3rd party network handle your DNS for you, especially in the areas of DDOS attacks (distributed-denial-of-service). Although it doesn't sound likely, from what I've seen so far this is actually a pretty big problem for several affiliate programs, and I've also seen it happen with some of the online sex shops (more than likely they're attacking each other).

With using your provider, you also have to face the issue of availability. Many hosting providers only have your DNS entry on 1 DNS server, or if they have it on 2 of them, they're both located on the same network. Never a good idea. Larger DNS management companies can provide you with up to 5 layers of DNS redundancy on individual networks, insuring that this will never be a problem for you. It will also GREATLY decrease the time it takes for clients to resolve your domain names, which means your pages will appear to load faster for them.

Another advantage if you're using a 3rd party, is you have the option of creating subdomains on separate providers (a lot of hosting provider's dns management doesn't allow for this), and if you ever change providers, you can propegate your new DNS info before turning off your old provider, giving you no downtime in the move.

The ultimate, if your site gets a lot of traffic, is the ability to set up round-robin DNS, so that your site can exist on several different hosting providers at once, and your DNS service can split your traffic over all of them. This will allow for ZERO downtime, should one of your hosting providers go down.

All of these are reasons why I personally use Network Solutions as my registrar for my "important" domains. Sure, they're a few bucks more expensive every year, but they offer all of their customers Free DNS Management. That feature alone is WELL worth the difference in price.......

hope that helps.

[Lee]

I had never even thought of that as an option to be honest, i think most of us take it for granted that the domains host and registrar handles all of that stuff.

Regards,

Lee

[djdez]

Originally posted by Lee
I had never even thought of that as an option to be honest, i think most of us take it for granted that the domains host and registrar handles all of that stuff.

Regards,

Lee

Generally, your host handles your DNS unless you specifically pay a third party to manage it. I'm learning the potential benefits of third party DNS management and thanks to JustMe for the information he provided. We've recently been contacted by a company that manages the DNS for a lot of mainstream and adult sites.