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Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

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Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#1

Post by markup »

I am hosting a number of customers' (and friend's) domain names and websites. In my effort to keep my expenses low I sat down and calculated how much it would have been to move them into the cloud. Since it would actually result in reduced expense (both in terms of money and time) compared to my current setup I am going for it.

I will have to "outsource" my current dns setup and I am looking for some reliable [paid or free] service, possibily with a decent web based interface. It would be a plus to be able to deal with domain zone files directly (or with a certain degree of freedom), since I master them pretty well.

As of now I found this one: http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/pages/dns.html -- it looks quite good and the prices are not bad at all, but I am wondering if there are any valid alternatives.

Thanks

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#2

Post by brk »

Enom is reliable and they have APIs, which would likely have some value in your situation.

Not sure if you can edit zone files directly though.

I run my own nameservers in addition to using enom for registration and some basic domains. I never really considered the cost of maintaining a DNS server to be all that significant.

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#3

Post by jacquesm »

I fail to see the connection between moving your friends' stuff and the DNS hosting.

Hosting DNS costs next to nothing, it is hardly any bandwidth, and any old server will do. A $9 / month shared host would do the job.

As for hosted DNS, almost every big registrar offers this service, it is fine as long as your requirements are simple.

Enom, godaddy, moniker, netsol they all do this, with some of them it is free if they are the party used to register the domain.

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#6

Post by markup »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

I fail to see the connection between moving your friends' stuff and the DNS hosting. Hosting DNS costs next to nothing, it is hardly any bandwidth, and any old server will do. A $9 / month shared host would do the job. As for hosted DNS, almost every big registrar offers this service, it is fine as long as your requirements are simple. Enom, godaddy, moniker, netsol they all do this, with some of them it is free if t…

It's about paid customers and not only friends. Paid customers expect a smooth service. At the moment I have multiple (virtual and physicall) servers around the world to both host and deal with nameservers. This solution is time and money consuming, so I am moving to a different approach.

A single shared nameserver does not grant a 100% uptime and costs 2x the price of the business plan that company I linked earlier is offering. I call this an expensive and badly implemented solution.

A single self-hosted nameserver does not grant a 100% uptime and requires a fitting internet connection and an old box to run bind on. At the moment I do not have an old box or server to run bind on, and even if I had it, the box could die and I would have to deal with the downtime (single nameserver), buy spare parts, lost time to fix the box and at the moment I do not have a fitting internet connection.

Godaddy's dns hosting is utter crap, it seriously hurts my eyes and needs a bazilion clicks to accomplish a simple task so I am looking for valid alternatives providing more than one nameserver, with uptimes close to (better yet: matching) 100%, to save money and time and keep paid and free customers happy.

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#7

Post by hboon »

markup wrote: post #6
jacquesm wrote: post #3

I fail to see the connection between moving your friends' stuff and the DNS hosting. Hosting DNS costs next to nothing, it is hardly any bandwidth, and any old server will do. A $9 / month shared host would do the job. As for hosted DNS, almost every big registrar offers this service, it is fine as long as your requirements are simple. Enom, godaddy, moniker, netsol they all do this, with some of them it is free if t…

It's about paid customers and not only friends. Paid customers expect a smooth service. At the moment I have multiple (virtual and physicall) servers around the world to both host and deal with nameservers. This solution is time and money consuming, so I am moving to a different approach. A single shared nameserver does not grant a 100% uptime and costs 2x the price of the business plan that company I linked earlier…

Have been using dnsmadeeasy.com for some time. Reliable so far and have heard good things about them.

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#8

Post by socialtistics »

davidw wrote: post #5

I use everydns. The guy who created it is, amongst other things, an occasional HN user: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=davidu

We use everydns.com here as well. It is free, but they do ask for donations. If you donate I think it is at least $15 they will remove the restrictions on the number of domains you have. They have an easy to use web interface and are extremely reliable. Overall we couldn't be happier with them.

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#9

Post by markup »

socialtistics wrote: post #8
davidw wrote: post #5

I use everydns. The guy who created it is, amongst other things, an occasional HN user: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=davidu

We use everydns.com here as well. It is free, but they do ask for donations. If you donate I think it is at least $15 they will remove the restrictions on the number of domains you have. They have an easy to use web interface and are extremely reliable. Overall we couldn't be happier with them.

Thank you guys, I'll try it out

Re: Ask HN: any suggestion for DNS providers? (need to outsource my bind setup)

#10

Post by ghshephard »

markup wrote: post #6
jacquesm wrote: post #3

I fail to see the connection between moving your friends' stuff and the DNS hosting. Hosting DNS costs next to nothing, it is hardly any bandwidth, and any old server will do. A $9 / month shared host would do the job. As for hosted DNS, almost every big registrar offers this service, it is fine as long as your requirements are simple. Enom, godaddy, moniker, netsol they all do this, with some of them it is free if t…

It's about paid customers and not only friends. Paid customers expect a smooth service. At the moment I have multiple (virtual and physicall) servers around the world to both host and deal with nameservers. This solution is time and money consuming, so I am moving to a different approach. A single shared nameserver does not grant a 100% uptime and costs 2x the price of the business plan that company I linked earlier…

Since when was running named on a pair of servers (put one on linode and one on slicehost for redundancy) not work for all but the larger companies? And by the time you are that large, cost of name servers is so insignificant as to be round off error.

I always used to think that I was missing something special about DNS - I mean, it can't be as simple as configuring named.conf for a master and slave, creating a zone file, tossing an SOA plus some Resource Records into it, could it? Perhaps it's because I keep a 500 page copy of "DNS and BIND" on my desk, and perhaps it's because large deployments of DNS _are_ complex - but for the vast majority (and certainly anybody simple enough to outsource there DNS to a hosting organization) - it's a pretty straightforward, solved and inexpensive problem.

The one reason to do this, I guess, is if you just are done with the "part-time-systems-administrator" gig, and would just like to wash your hands of it. But, if you have to do some of it already, the incremental cost of running for multiple organizations is pretty insignificant.

I realize, btw, that this is off topic - and you are actually looking for guidance on out-sourced DNS servers - I just couldn't restrain my fingers when I caught your paragraphs noting the cost of parts and servers. $40/month buys you two servers, one with slicehost and one with linode.

There are a lot of reasons to hand your DNS to a third party (Nice interfaces, handling the customer service, hassle-of-managing) - but cost of servers/internet isn't one of them.

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