5 signs you need a premium DNS service

Buy a domain name. Associate that domain with your DNS server. complete.

As you look to strengthen your presence on the Internet, using a domain registrar can make it easier to get started with basic, reliable Domain Name System (DNS) hosting. This is ultimately what most small businesses need. In other words, it is a reliable service that answers DNS queries. Nothing more or less than that.

But at some point, a thriving business begins to outgrow the standard DNS services offered by most registrars. There are natural limits where a company’s requirements for scale, performance, and reliability exceed what registrar DNS can provide.

It is usually a gradual realization, not a thunderous moment. Over time, a series of horrifying operational questions and concerns start to pile up, and when you look at the root cause, you realize that DNS is often the culprit. We hope that that realization comes before the limited functionality of the registrar offering impacts your business.

The IBM® NS1 Connect® team knows the power of premium DNS because we know the difference it makes when our customers make the switch. Moreover, we know that DNS issues persist because it is something we live and breathe every day. But if you’re in the trenches, dealing with thousands of different problems every day, the signs aren’t so obvious. So we’ve put together a few signs that it might be time to consider an upgrade.

1. Greater uptime and resilience are needed.

In the digital age, if your DNS is down, your business is down. As your business scales, you need to provide continued access to the customers that drive revenue growth. Registrars and DNS services typically offer reasonable uptime service level agreements with no upfront costs. However, as networks grow in size and complexity, the need for failover plans and backup infrastructure often exceeds what registrars are willing or able to provide.

The need for resiliency often leads growing businesses to adopt multiple DNS solutions simultaneously. Essentially, adding a secondary DNS provider as a failover option helps prevent over-reliance on a single infrastructure vendor. Network teams also have access to multiple feature sets, allowing them to adopt a best-in-class approach across multiple solutions.

2. I want to do more than answer emails.

As your business grows, the quality of DNS responses begins to become more important. Today’s customers have high expectations for Internet-enabled services. Meeting these expectations at scale requires traffic steering capabilities that native Anycast DNS networks lack.

Growth-oriented companies focused on global expansion tend to be the first to recognize the limitations of their existing DNS. This is where all traffic is responded to in the same way, or by the same set of servers, usually located in North America. Efficiently routing traffic to nearby infrastructure can be the difference between a successful service expansion and one that doesn’t meet expectations.

Most large companies use some form of traffic shaping to optimize performance. Whether routing queries by location, application type, or performance factor, traffic shaping helps deliver the best network possible.

3. I am interested in the infrastructure that provides the answers.

Every network administrator knows that any high-performance online experience is delivered from a spaghetti of backend infrastructure elements. Coordinating applications and content across all your cloud, content delivery network (CDN), and on-premises resources can quickly become complex. Delivering a coordinated product at the lowest possible cost adds another challenge.

Registrar DNS solutions cannot provide the flexibility that most enterprise network teams need to fine-tune how they deliver applications, services, and content. You can’t move traffic to the cheapest CDN in real time. You cannot steer queries to deprecated services. It is not possible to automatically select infrastructure that maps to a contract commitment level.

4. I want to see what’s in my DNS data.

DNS data provides valuable information about how your applications, content, and services are used online. It can also provide a lot of information about network performance and how misconfigurations can affect its ability to provide a secure DNS infrastructure.

Unfortunately, registrar DNS services typically do not provide the ability to peek behind the curtain and examine the details of traffic patterns. It may provide some facts about poor performance symptoms such as increased NXDOMAIN responses. However, it does not help identify the root cause or provide guidance on how to fix the problem.

Small businesses rarely have the capacity or in-house expertise to benefit from DNS data. But as companies grow with more sophisticated technology stacks and teams capable of turning network data into action, DNS traffic becomes an important source of guidance for efforts to improve performance and reduce costs.

5. I have a professional level question.

The default DNS service provided by most registrars is designed to answer queries. As a result, there is little to no professional service delivery or the ability to discuss DNS issues with a dedicated Customer Success Manager. Because the service itself is so basic, there is no one to consult if you have questions beyond standard functional performance inquiries.

DNS is easier to understand if you just do some simple tasks. Asking for more work quickly becomes a minefield. The longevity of DNS as part of the Internet means that there are layers of technical complexity that can take time to understand and operate in practice. Breaking DNS is easy if you don’t know what you’re doing, with potentially disastrous and immediate consequences.

Enhanced security is a classic example. Anyone who has experienced compromised DNS records while attempting to implement a Domain Name System security extension knows that it is a tedious and technically intensive endeavor. Protecting against distributed denial-of-service attacks can turn into a game of whack-a-mole where you spend more time plugging holes than optimizing DNS lookup performance.

As your business grows and expands, it becomes increasingly important to have someone to guide you through the pros, cons, and complexities of DNS. The registrar cannot assist you beyond basic troubleshooting.

NS1: Premium DNS for growing businesses

We explored the constraints that default registrar DNS services have on network performance, user satisfaction, and revenue growth. Every day we see the transformative power of premium IBM NS1 Connect® Managed DNS with the features businesses need to deliver high-performance applications, services and content.

We’ve also seen the concrete difference a hands-on, close-knit support team can make for network managers starting their journey from small to medium-sized businesses to larger, more influential enterprises.

There is wisdom here that remains timeless and true. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It is better to take preventive measures than to deal with the consequences later. Therefore, if you set up your network correctly in the beginning, it will be much easier to manage in the long run.

But don’t just take our word for it. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level or are curious about how NS1’s advanced features can impact your business, take a look at IBM NS1 Connect.

Learn more about IBM NS1 Connect