Comments on: DNS Explained

By: Edwards

Edwards — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:47:02 +0000

Well said Mike. Not sure about other efficient ways.

By: Dr. Mike Wendell

Dr. Mike Wendell — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:01:02 +0000

Back in the old days, you were actually required to have your DNS servers off and away from your servers. Things changed when everybody started having their own websites. And, to be honest, if your server is down, having DNS up and running isn’t going to matter since there’s no where for your visitors to go.

For our clients, we run the local server as primary DNS and use a pair of VPS elsewhere for secondary and Tertiary DNS.

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:03:05 +0000

If you are using hosting in North America with a larger hosting company, the host’s DNS servers are likely to be spread out geographically. For example one of our servers is a futurehosting VPS. Futurehosting has 2 DNS servers in each of their datacentres which are all in different US states. We can access to our DNS through any of the datacentres.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:21:43 +0000

@ Barry
Thank you! That make a lot of sense.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:15:47 +0000

@Martin
I tend to use neither. I’d suggest using an external DNS provider and one, if at all possible, with geographically spread DNS servers.

As a DNS server is the key for a user getting to your site, it makes sense to have as reliable a system as possible.

Also, you should never (in my opinion) use your hosts DNS servers. If your hosts internet connection goes down for any period of time and you want to redirect your domain to a “holding page” or a backup site on another server, then you need that DNS accessible and external to the host.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:58:55 +0000

Thanks for the article. Would you say it’s generally better to use the registrar’s DNS or the webhost’s DNS?

I suspect the answer is “it depends”, but I wonder about pros and cons.

Thanks!