The current demand for CDN service on the Internet is enormous. Graphics, documents, audio, video, scripts, you name it! Without efficient technology, it could be hard for a CDN (Content Delivery Network), and sometimes impossible, to satisfy users’ expectations worldwide.
What is DNS resolution?
DNS resolution is a vital process in which a requested domain typed in a human-friendly language (example.com) is translated into a computer language, an IP address (151.112.2.1). This process involves different servers to be accomplished. And no matter its complexity, it must take milliseconds to be considered efficient.
Shortly described, every time you (user) request a domain, you type it on your browser. Your request is taken by a recursive server that will look for the corresponding IP address for the domain you requested. Without the IP address, the domain, nor any of its content, can’t be loaded.
The recursive server’s journey includes asking the root nameserver first, then the TLD nameserver, and finally the authoritative nameserver, which will provide the IP address. Only the authoritative can provide it the IP address. Once the recursive obtains the IP address, it will send it to the browser, and the domain will be loaded.
What’s Anycast DNS?
Anycast DNS is an addressing and routing mechanism that uses one ingenious trick. The Anycast DNS configuration assigns the same IP address to all the servers included on the network. When requests arrive, Anycast DNS distributes them across the network. Basically, requests will be sent to the closest data center to the requester. The less distance between the requester and the name server, the faster response can be provided to the DNS client.
Benefits of Anycast DNS for a quality CDN service
Considering that the main purpose of a content delivery network (CDN) is to distribute content to specific audiences spread globally, Anycast DNS totally gets along with CDN’s needs.
The amount of content requests a CDN receives can perfectly be distributed and routed through Anycast DNS to be efficiently processed. Using Anycast DNS, you can make different groups of servers configured to serve different regions. Each group will direct the traffic to a specific and strategically located data center, where the content will be available. As a result, users of these regions will always be directed to the closest data center to get a faster response.
The Anycast DNS efficient distribution of traffic reduces latency a lot. Not to make your CDN clients wait so much enhances their experience and ensure your profit.
It also helps to efficiently handle high loads of traffic, spikes, and congestion in the network. It can withstand heavy traffic without going down.
You can improve the availability of your CDN service using Anycast DNS. For example, if a server goes down due to normal maintenance, a failure, or an attack, the requests will go to another server for being served.
It protects you against DDoS attacks, thanks to its ability to distribute big traffic loads, legit and malicious. And if the DDoS attack shuts down a server, you can trust that the rest will keep working, therefore your CDN service.
How does Anycast DNS prevent DDoS attacks?
Conclusion
As you see, the foundation of a quality CDN service is Anycast DNS. It not only speeds up your DNS resolution when content is requested from a site but also, it will improve different key aspects of your CDN.