Cloud DNS : How and What Are the Tools to Manage

Cloud DNS in a highly distributed environment direct users to point towards the right place easily and very fast. Placement may vary depending on your needs. Previously, we published a basic article on Cloud DNS as well as advanced guide on How to Make DNS Propagation Faster and Save From DNS Hijacking. From another unrelated video guide, How to Perform Automated Installation of WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Sites, you will notice that under 5 minutes we have purchased a domain, installed WordPress on it. It was not possible 8 years ago – DNS Propagation took few days itself. Apart from the fast work with Cloud DNS, there are other points which needs to be mentioned regarding Cloud DNS.

Extended Information on Cloud DNS

All domain uses services the Domain Name System , but not all ensures that their implementation is the best possible for them. Not many people know how a DNS must be configured before using the cloud services and face increasing problems related to virtualized deployments of applications. In this scenario, the DNS and in particular the distributed DNS  is of primary importance. Nowadays technologies are available and suppliers allow users to use any combination of internal and external cloud infrastructure to run their own applications, but many companies are reluctant to use them because they do not know how to change the resolution mechanisms of the DNS server. A number of things need to pay attention to reconfigure ther DNS architecture are as follows:

• In a highly distributed environment, the DNS will direct GET request to the right folder or directory and this place may vary depending on your needs.
• In one hybrid IPv6 and IPv4 DNS will serve both types of addresses, depending on the type of request.
• Increasingly, DNSSEC extensions becoming a critical requirement. DNSSEC extends the standard of DNS to verify that the data has not been modified and came from the official sources.
• When a cloud service fails or some cloud resources for scalability is deleted, it will need dynamic changes to DNS.
• Multiple DNS Server in several areas must remain synchronized to cover a single domain.

From these objectives, we can deduct, that the key features for a Cloud DNS is – it can differentiate applications with predefined internal resources. In case of cloud applications or cms like WordPress on cloud, the end users have no way of knowing where an instance of a resource or storage actually is, so depending upon the configuration, they might not point to a specific IP address. This problem is solved by directing requests to the domain name that in turn points to the current one, correcting the IP address or an entire set of addresses. The goodness of an application thus depends on its DNS information.

In addition, each service has its own infrastructure and its specific way to perform the automatic scaling and load balancing. This process involves the internal IP address management.

Cloud DNS : How and What Are the Tools to Manage

Then where from to start and configure the Cloud DNS ?  A highly distributed environment is difficult to treat if you come from a traditional DNS environment. In case of a distributed system, it is indeed necessary to design a system for load balancing or have a system that allows for a floating IP in the backend and static in the front end. It actually sounds quite difficult. And really the Cloud DNS management in fact, from the backend coding is quite difficult as there are several variables.

Thankfully, most Cloud Service providers has its own tool, like Rackspace Cloud. The user basically needs nothing to do which is quite complex. There are third party Cloud DNS services as well, which gives the prototype easy to use GUI based frontend.