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Mark Sutton
Asked: 2009-11-24 06:55:22 +0800 CST

Site specific URL DNS Issue

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I have a large number of worldwide sites that need to access a service via a URL.
The site URL cannot be altered as it is set centrally.
The service is hosted locally at each site, as connectivity can be flaky, and therefore the URL has to route to this local server when accessed from a machine within the site.
Unfortunately all the sites and the central infrastructure are within one single Domain Forest and DNS Domain.

Any suggestions Im unable to use a proxy and concerned about the manageability of lots of site specific DNS zones?

Thanks
Mark Sutton

domain-name-system

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    If you are managing your own DNS (or within the organization), I'd suggest setting up a service level DNS zone. We implemented this by simply tacking svc to the left of our root domain, and made it a standard primary/secondary DNS zone (versus ADI) so that all entries to it are static. e.g. svc.internaldomain.

    We use an entry in this zone for any and all service specific DNS pointers, usually by CNAME'ing the service level entry to a machine on the backend, like CVS. We also use a similar system to allow the developers to use the same code in different development levels; dev.example, test.example, beta.example. Then you can alter what development "service" your server is connecting to by just changing the DNS search list.

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  2. Can you put the local version of the service somewhere in RFC1918 space? (I.e., in the 192.168.1 zone, etc.)

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  3. Are there local domain controllers at each worldwide site? If so, then you would be able to run a DNS server at each, on the domain controller, and then on a given site's DNS server, set the A record for your service's hostname (URL) to a machine running on that site's network.

    (If there isn't a domain controller and/or DNS server local to each site, then I'm not sure how your network can function at all given that "connectivity can be flaky" -- if you're really relying on distant Active Directory service servers despite flaky connectivity, there might be larger problems than just how to resolve this one hostname.)

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