Is Premium DNS worth it?

For most businesses, there comes a point when the link between Domain Name System (DNS) and revenue becomes more critical. It’s time for businesses to realize that DNS connection quality needs more attention if they want to deliver high-quality applications, services, and content. For most businesses, this is the moment when they discover that the free DNS service provided by their domain registrar or the DIY system they have been using is no longer fit for purpose.

The connection between DNS performance and revenue usually leads to a mental adjustment to the operating costs of a premium DNS hosting solution. Many IT teams are not accustomed to thinking of authoritative DNS as a separate budget item. They tend to think of DNS as “free” or something they can simply take away, until problems arise due to outages or “we can’t do that” conversations. for example:

• BIND or DIY authoritative DNS Solutions are typically built and maintained in-house. Because you’re not paying an outside provider, “out-of-pocket” costs for labor and computing resources feel less severe.
• Registrar DNS Products are included in basic domain registration packages or sold as very inexpensive add-ons. Unless you’re within your usage limits, DNS probably won’t appear to be a specific cost to consider.
• CDN provider Sometimes authoritative DNS is included as an add-on to a larger web services package.

A degree of sticker shock is common when businesses decide to switch from one of the above models to a premium DNS provider like NS1.^®. This is the same network that pays for bottled water after drinking water from the tap all your life. Water (e.g. DNS) is essential, but when you’re used to thinking of something as free, it’s somewhat surprising that you pay for it in such a distinct way.

The important thing to remember is that premium DNS services deliver more business value. You’re upgrading because the default solution no longer meets your needs.

Pay based on business value

No one upgrades their DNS service just for fun. Most businesses choose providers that offer premium DNS to better serve their end users. They realize that they are losing revenue due to slow applications or websites, and the only way to get faster performance is to switch to a DNS service with wider reach, more resources, and more customization features.

This is especially true for companies undergoing global expansion. As users pop up from more parts of the world, you’ll need to provide consistently great service in more places to capitalize on that opportunity. This is where limited registrar services typically drop the ball. Without the ability to direct traffic to the nearest data center, users will experience much slower performance as traffic travels halfway around the world.

These enterprise-grade features are where DNS begins to add unique value to any network team, and are priced accordingly. Once these higher level DNS features are implemented, their justification becomes clearer almost overnight. Unlike standard DNS services that run almost unnoticed in the background, premium DNS features should stand out and provide the unique value that every network team can expect from a separate budget item.

Match price and value

The problem is: Even if you’re not used to seeing DNS in black and white, you’re always paying for it. If you build your own solution, you pay for DNS through developer time and server capacity. There is also an opportunity cost of using developer time on higher value tasks and strategic projects. When using registrar services, end users will experience poor performance and reduced reliability because the registrar infrastructure is not properly built.

All of these forms of bundled or so-called “free” web hosting solutions have another thing in common: That said, it’s all very basic. Most are designed to host DNS records and respond to queries. If you’re looking to track multiple DNS providers, gather insights from DNS data, use DNSSEC, or perform the most basic types of traffic shaping, you’re probably out of luck. Protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks is also not part of the package.

What makes these DNS products easy to add to your bundle is that they don’t require a lot of backend resources to support. Because it is relatively easy to deploy and maintain, it is easy for service providers to add it to larger packages. However, purchasing DNS from a provider without specific capabilities often means taking on risks with your core IT systems.

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Most businesses find out the hard way that they need a premium DNS solution when they lose customers due to downtime or poor performance. Or, it may be a strategic realization that you need advanced features that basic DNS doesn’t provide to achieve your business goals.

Either way, switching from basic DNS to a premium solution requires a significant mental adjustment. If you’re looking for a provider that offers services beyond simply answering DNS queries, this usually means you need an advanced solution that can meet your changing business needs (congratulations!).

Whether you need greater scale, greater resiliency, or higher performance, a premium DNS provider means you’ve advanced to the next level – enterprise capabilities across network functions.

The good news is that premium DNS solutions are more differentiated than basic or bundled solutions. You have a lot of choices when it comes to how your solution is structured and what features you want to use.

Many companies in this space specialize in specific market segments (such as video streaming or regulated industries with reliability requirements) or have products tailored to specific use cases (such as data-driven traffic steering between CDNs or fine-tuned data insights). tends to provide We recommend finding features that truly add value to your type of business.

NS1 represents the best business value of any premium DNS solution on the market. NS1 gives customers the ability to succeed in new ways by addressing the operational risks and strategic shortcomings of basic DNS solutions. From API-first architecture to sophisticated traffic shaping capabilities to resilient systems, NS1 has something for everyone.

We know that first-time users of our premium solutions may not be able to use everything at once. We are happy to be able to grow together with our customers. That’s because we can work with our customers to add value as their business needs change over time.

Harness the power of premium DNS