Performance of Bind 9.2.3 vs BIND 4.8.3

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "nishant" == nishant  <nishant80 at gmail.com> writes:

    nishant> Hello All, I want to upgrade from BIND 4.8.3 to BIND 9.2.3.

Don't even think about it, just do it! BIND4 is *dead*.

    nishant> I am using the above piece of code to send queries to: 1)
    nishant> A BIND 9.2.3 nameserver and, 2) A BIND 4.8.3 nameserver

You'd be better off using queryperf in the BIND9 distribution for this
sort of benchmarking.

    nishant> I took about 50 readings for both nameservers.  The
    nishant> readings of this test reflect that the response time (the
    nishant> value of query_time) in case of the 9.2.3 server is
    nishant> almost 50% more than the 4.8.3 server. i.e, a 50%
    nishant> performance degradation.

    nishant> This is holding me from upgrading the DNS. I know that it
    nishant> may be argued that BIND 9 provides security features --
    nishant> etc. But, what is the point when the most basic query
    nishant> processing is not very efficient?

BIND4 is dead. That's enough justification by itself. Some of the root
servers -- who get orders of magnitude more queries than your server --
run BIND9. None run BIND4. There are very good reasons for that. Query
throughput isn't everything, even for the guys running the busiest
name servers on the net.

All your tests show is that BIND4 is quicker at answering from its
cache than a BIND9 server. This should surprise no-one. But even that
doesn't make a compelling case for sticking with long-dead code. You've
only measured one aspect of a name server's performance. What about
the times to load a zone file or to resolve names that aren't cached?

It's also unlikely that the raw throughput of your name server will
actually be noticeable. Does it *really* matter if an application gets
its DNS query answered in 4 milliseconds instead of 2? Perhaps it
might for an application that made hundreds of DNS queries per second. 
But there are very few applications that have anything like those sort
of characteristics.

BTW, some authoritative-only (non-BIND) DNS implementations are at
least an order of magnitude faster than even BIND4 is at answering
queries. Take a look at the open-source NSD or Nominum's ANS if raw
throughput really matters.

    nishant> As far as my understanding goes, BIND 9 servers are
    nishant> supposed to perform better than BIND 4 servers, isn't it?

It depends on your definition of "better". If the criterion is raw
throughout from cache, BIND4 will be quicker because it isn't
encumbered with the extensive sanity checking that's in BIND9. OTOH if
your criteria include support for the latest DNS protocol features,
protocol conformance, ease of administration, code quality, security,
future-proofing for new protocol features, support for threading and
huge address spaces, proper handling of query restarts, etc, etc,
BIND9 wins. And BIND9 is very far from dead. From that perspective,
it couldn't be any clearer which performs better.