Use of <akadns>

[Lee, Ethan]

its interesting that you mentioned how their ( Akamai ) DNS works. can i
enquire any specific examples of how their DNS is configured ? ie. is it
standards-based or did they write their own special code ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Christophe Deleuze [mailto:deleuze at ActiVia.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 2:17 AM
To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at moderators.isc.org
Subject: Re: Use of <akadns>



akadns is the domain name used by Akamai for its content delivery network
(CDN).

Basically, a CDN is a set of servers that replicate some web site. A
"direction system" directs the user to the best-suited (e.g. closest)
server that has a copy of the web site.

Akamai's direction system is DNS based.  That means that subdomains of
akadns.net are dynamic names.  The A record you can get for them depend of
who you are (or where you're from, as can be guessed from the source address
of the DNS request).

Thus if you try to connect to www.microsoft.com that is CNAMEd to
whatever.akadns.net, you'll ask Akamai's special DNS servers for the
corresponding IP address.  They will answer with the IP address of the
closest to you CDN server (well, in theory at least).

-- 
Dr. Christophe Deleuze		Christophe.Deleuze at ActiVia.net
ActiVia Networks		http://www.activia.net