Today on the episode 4 of the Network AF podcast, host Avi Freedman welcomes his longtime friend Elliot Noss. For 25 years, Elliot has been the CEO of Tucows, the internet services company with the second-largest domain registrar in the world. Elliot is considered an outlier in the ISP industry, largely due to his transparency and for the stellar customer experiences he encourages through Tucows.

The Domain Name System (DNS) makes it possible for users to access websites using domain names, like wikipedia.org, in place of nine-digit IP addresses. Due to its ubiquitous nature, DNS can be used to block access to selected websites, which is commonly known as DNS filtering. Many companies see security and productivity benefits from implementing this strategy where appropriate. Read on as we explore some of the key details around how DNS filtering works and how it can be beneficial.

In modern communications networks the demand for more speed and more capacity to drive ever more advanced services has been at the heart of network development – especially in the mobile space. Even the generational numbers hint at the increases – 3G, 4G, 5G - every change indicating an increase, every change indicating something that is somehow bigger and better. And, of course, the impression created is largely correct.

In part 1 of this series, I talked a bit about how encryption is shaping network performance monitoring (NPM). Let’s dive in deeper now… Most NetOps and DevOps professionals today hear complaints about network performance when employees work from home. Unless the complaint is coming from all remote users of an application, individuals suffering from slowness are on their own to figure out how to optimize connection speeds.

Any organization with an online presence understands the importance of its website. That’s why companies invest thousands of dollars in design, user interface (UI) development, and site optimization. But that’s only part of the puzzle. Your website or online application can have all the bells and whistles, but if you aren’t fully optimizing your DNS, you’re losing money—plain and simple.