Have you ever wondered how the internet manages to translate the domain names you type into the browser into IP addresses that connect you to your desired websites? The answer lies in the Domain Name System (DNS), a complex network of servers and protocols that makes online communication possible. But with this complexity comes the need for DNS monitoring, which plays a crucial role in ensuring website availability, preventing security breaches, and optimizing network performance.

DNS stands for the Domain Name System. This system translates website names into IP addresses so that those sites could be loaded by various devices. When you are browsing the internet, you get assigned a server automatically when you are loading pages. Unless you have your own server, this might not be an ideal option. The server you use is directly responsible for the loading speed. And if it goes down, there will be no internet connection at all.

The primary DNS server hosting a zone or multiple zones acts as an authoritative DNS through which DNS administrators manage zone files and perform DNS changes like adding, deleting, and updating DNS records.

Find out how to effectively and easily monitor and troubleshoot CoreDNS using Netdata.

Latency is the key differentiator when it comes to application performance on the internet. Reduced latency accelerates the delivery of apps. DNS resolving is the first step towards application delivery and it involves a series of steps. Prior to Anycast DNS, the DNS servers responsible for resolving users’ DNS requests were sitting continents away from many users, contributing to the high latency and slow delivery of applications.

DNS resolution is the first step taken to form an internet connection. This includes when any device is being used to access a website or any type of internet-enabled application, such as e-commerce, CRM, or food delivery. These applications are connected to the internet via IP-backbone, which is typically controlled by a protocol named BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). Each application has a unique numbering schema on the internet, referred to as IP address.

DNS (Domain Name System) servers translate standard language web addresses to their actual IP addresses for network access. DNS response time is the time it takes a Domain Name Server to receive the request for a domain name’s IP address, process it, and return the IP address to the browser or application requesting it. When it comes to DNS response times, the lower the better, and generally values less than 100ms are considered to be in the acceptable range (depending on the application).

The DNS is the most critical part of network infrastructure and the only doorway to the internet. We at ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp, understand this criticality well and have carefully designed software that helps IT infrastructure management professionals securely manage their domains’ DNS records and elude modern problems in DNS management. We’re excited to introduce ManageEngine CloudDNS, the first critical infrastructure management software in our portfolio.

We created experimental Docker image which tries to ensure high availability of your web service by dynamically refreshing Cloudflare DNS with healthy endpoints.

How do I prevent DNS related Issues from affecting my status page? This is a very common question we receive from customers at Statuspal. That is what we decided to write an article with suggestions that answer this question.