DNS redundancy

[peter at nospam.se]

Vincent.Tan at mail.state.ky.us wrote:
: Dear DNS gurus:

: I am looking for a solution that will provide redundancy (immediate) for my
: primary DNS.  We have one primary DNS, and several secondary/slave DNS.
: However, when the primary goes offline, clients (especially windows) take
: too long to resolve name queries (usually waiting for a timeout before
: querying the secondary DNS).

: A proposal was suggested by a colleague of mine that we install a layer 4
: switch, such as Alteon's AceDirector.  We can attach several DNS to the
: switch.  We then point clients to the switch's IP address for name
: resolution.  The switch in turn, will query one of the DNS, depending on the
: DNS's state (up/down) and load.  If one of the DNS goes offline, the switch
: will redirect the query to another DNS.  As such, if the primary DNS goes to
: lunch, it will be transparent to the clients, as their queries will continue
: to be resolved by any other DNS behind the switch.

: I would like to know if anyone out there have such an implementation.  If
: you do, can you please give me some directions (e.g. hardware used, BIND
: setup, physical topology, etc.)  I am also eager to hear any other viable
: solutions that will resolve my problem mentioned above.

An alternative might be to base your DNS on stable hard & software.
Properly configured it will run for years & years without a hich.

Adding complexity does not always result in better uptime ...
But is shure always results in higher costs.

BTW what do you use your secondarys for if all clients ask the primary ?

: Thanks in advance...

You're welcome!

: Vincent Tan [MCSE, CNE, CIP, MCP, CNA]
: vincent.tan at mail.state.ky.us



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Peter Håkanson   peter (at) gbg (dot) netman (dot) se