Managing Your Domain Using External DNS

So why do you promote those two DNS services here, pretending they would help in moving sites quick.

As some others above commented all you need is a 15 minute TTL.

All bit hosters have DNS zone editors, i.e. Softlayer, The Planet, etc. where you can do what those "external DNS companies" do.

When I moved servers - and I moved A LOT away from the planet in the last months - I just point THEIR dns to my new hosts and when that has happened, I create a new DNS entry at the new host ... just to make sure I got all things together... but that wouldnt be necessary actually

best christoph

Why not using the DNS service provided by the domain registrar (assuming your domain registration comes with DNS service)?

If you know how DNS works, but the domain registration didn't come with DNS service, and yet you don't want to pay extra for that, I'd suggest using EveryDNS @ http://www.everydns.net
Compare to ZoneEdit, EveryDNS has a better user interface.

When I would have to move than I move site and once the DNS is propagated I change entry with domain name registrar.

Why not use both?

Change DNS to ZoneEdit at the registrar while on the original webhost.

After it's updated, you will be on the same host, so now move your data and update ZoneEdit to point to the new host and point the registrar to the new host too.

When the registrar updates it's records, you will be on the new host so no downtime.

I use godaddy for registering my domains and I use their DNS services as well. I've never had a problem using them.

Great idea! This will be very useful for me!

You have it all wrong.

The 3 day change is if you are changing your nameserver host. If you are simply updating your record, that can go live immediately. Let me explain.

Let's say your records are being hosted at ns1.domain1.com and ns2.domain2.com

If you want to change to ns1.domain2.com and ns2.domain2.com, that will take several days. The trick is to have your host records setup at both places! This makes the transfer easy and seemless.

Also, host record changes can be mitigated by adjust your TTL setting in dns. Normally, for all the domains I host, I have the TTL set for 24 hours. This is a nice balance between changes and overloading the dns server. Now if a customer wants to make a change, I (or they) can adjust the TTL value to say 5 minutes. This will cause the values to expire out of everyone on the Internets dns cache each 5 minutes(assuming the visited your site withing the ttl period).

Please contact me at my published email address if you are looking for reliable and cost effective web, dns, email hosting.

I'm able to confirm this, I had to switch hosting-providers a couple of weeks ago. The domain was a main mail-hup and I was very concerned about the "allow up to 72 hours for updates". I had to do the switch anyway, but the domain was at a registrar and not with the former hosting-provider. Worked like a charm, about two hours later everything was back to normal, the domain started to resolve correctly (on and off, though) after 4 minutes. (Yes, I used a stopwatch, so?).

When I was using Network Solutions to host my domain, they would fix problems within 30 minutes of talking to them, which occurred after being on hold for about 20 minutes. They're probably the most expensive domain registrar, but they provide very good service. You get what you pay for.

It sounds like this is worth the money.. if.. it will save you headaches..

It's a small price to pay for added peace of mind and if you can put up with having to deal with another "entity" then it should be a no brainer really.

Thanks for the info.

Sometimes it takes just a few hours to change DNS. Only time it takes more than a day is if you update it on the weekend.

There is not really a need to pay for external DNS as some Domain Registries offer that service for free.

Key - as mentioned before - should really be a combination of steps. The TTL value should be reduced to 15 minutes about a week before the actual move happens. Why? It kinda forces the shorter time to anyone who requested the DNS record and maybe received the IP information with a week's worth of TTL. Example: somebody looked at your site on Monday. TTL value = 1 week. On Tuesday you change the TTL value to 15 minutes. On Wednesday you move the site. Guess what - worst case scenario it will take another 5 days before the visitor from Monday gets to your new side. There are a lot things that come into play, but if you're really wanna be safe - change the TTL value a week before you intend to move your website.

Christoph

Does anybody know editdns.net?

Hi,

An external DNS provider is a always a safe bet.

However, it means another 'entity' to deal with. A single-provider is nice for those who aren't interested in the nitty-gritty and who are willing to give up a little control for a hassle-free experience.

Cheers.

Howdy All,

If I may add my two cents, I'd be a bit cautious and suspect about any provider that claims 100% uptime.

Check out this Wikipedia article for a look behind 'five nines' or 99.9999% uptime: Myth of the nines.

I've used ZoneEdit. Never had any issues (that I've been aware of). However, the interface is not the easiest, but then again, you get what you pay for.

Cheers.

Though your ISP's cache can definitely affect you (or, perhaps, your visitors), using an external DNS provider still makes a ton of sense.

Even if everything is just peachy (and let's face it - everything is not going to be just peachy), there will be a time when you want to switch providers. Keeping your DNS records somewhere other than your host or your registrar makes that process as close to painless as it can be.

And external DNS providers also provide a lower TTL, as mentioned. Chances are that even if you set a lower TTL value, ISPs around the world won't respect it - but there are plenty of folks who will.

If you are investing in a domain and a hosting account, spend the few bucks it takes and get a decent external DNS provider (I use DNS Made Easy myself). Between the extra uptime and the benefit of being able to really take control of your DNS records, you won't regret it.

Seems like a pretty random topic

UPDATE: Ah hes from the hosting company you are promoting :cool:

I Used to use ZoneEdit back like 3-4 years ago when i had a relatively big portfolio of domain names and it is a good free (it has even paid tho) service for DNS management.

Now i actually use the registrars nameserver (eNom is my registrar) which it works really smoothely, and NS propagate usually within 3-6 hours (in most cases to me). Anyway, using this method for saving downtime it is one (but not the only) good method.

John

Hey great post as usual. Thanks for the info.

Susan
http://www.susanvlz.blogspot.com

I've sure had this problem before. This is a very good idea.

JOHN CHOW ROCKS

Excellent tip. As site grow, they need to switch servers. Being able to do it painlessly is worth $15 a year!

One Man. One Year. $100,000 online. How's he doing it?
http://www.oneyeargoal.com

I've never had a problem with waiting for a domain to resolve after changing it from one host to another. Thats probably because when it comes to my sites or my clients site I use the best of everything. What I usually do is set up dns records on my server first, then swap my name server values over. This has always worked for me and it never fails.

I'm in the process of migrating 20 domains at the moment. I follow a fairly simple set pattern, create domain, create mail users, double check all settings against old host, create backup of live site, make nameserver changes, wait for propogation, upload from backup to new host. If only hosts delivered on their uptime promises then I wouldn't have to go through this crap.

I had a conversation on this topic with a knowledgable friend last week. I had intended to pursue this sort of setup. But pointed out that nothing in this setup addresses the real culprits...your local ISPs cache. That's why I can make a change and see it take effect in 5 minutes on my system, whereas someone 3 streets down on a different ISP might not see it until tomorrow. And none of this addresses the fact that IE comes with caching turned on, and most people don't know to turn it off if they want to see exactly what their page looks like every time. After pondering all that, I decided not to go this route.

Hi All,

Another cool idea is dyndns, basically is a linking service to link to your dynamic ip so that you may host your own DNS.

Here are some of the cool features:

* Hostnames in 68 domains
* Ability to create wildcards such as *.yourhost.dyndns.org that points to yourhost.dyndns.org
* Offline URL redirection
* MX records, allowing for flexible e-mail configurations
* Clients for a wide variety of platforms
* An open, non-proprietary update interface
* Almost instantaneous DNS propagation time
* Free, industry leading e-mail support
* 5 DNS servers in 4 redundant tier-1 datacenters around the globe

You may want to check out: http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

I use DNSPark for one of my domains. It's free, up to certain limits, and I've yet to have experienced any downtime.

No, I have not used an External DNS.

I have used ultraDNS for my Search Engine back in the day and it's a life saver ... the site was high traffic and I had a server go down ... had a new server up in 15 minutes ... changed the ttl on the domain to 5 minutes and we were back up and running in a total of 25 minutes ... with a complete server crash! If you need up time ... you have to use a external dns provider!

Darin

The last time I moved a site from one host to another it cached in less then 2 hours.

This seems like a nice fix, but I haven't had a problem with DNS updating up to 72 hours in like 8-9 years. In face I moved 30-odd web sites last month from one host to another, and the dns was updated in less than 5-8 minutes in most cases. Maybe this was due to the fact that I host all domain names at goDaddy, but I've never had a problem with DNS updating since at least the year 2000.

I still don't get why they say it takes 72 hours, the dozens of times I've had to make DNS changes it never takes more than a day to propagate everywhere (and yes, I will usually ask friends on IM who live in places like China, Australia, Belize, and even South Africa if changes have been made for them)

So is DNS a host or just a service to transfer your website to another web hosting service?

Thats awesome, I will totally give this a try next time I need to change servers.

Thanks John

Who is Gary Jones?