I am trying to setup GeoDNs and was wondering if I can add multiple server IPs to one US state to loadbalance it.
I have 4 servers in total. 2 server will serve New York And the other 2 serve California
Is this possible?
Starting with Windows Server 2016, MS DNS supports DNS Policies with "Geo-Location Based Traffic Management". But with older Windows Server versions I could configure local subnet prioritization (aka netmask ordering) to implement a similar functionality (make clients in different subnets contact a resource in the same subnet using the same server name).
So my question is how geo DNS policies that were added in Windows Server 2016 are different from local subnet prioritization?
Based on the Wikipedia description of Anycast, it includes both the distribution of a domain-name-to-many-IP-mapping across many DNS servers as well as replying to clients with the most geographically close (or fastest) server.
In the context of a globally distributed, highly available site like google.com (or any CDN service with many global edge locations) this sounds like the two key features one would need.
DNS services like Amazon's Route53, EasyDNS and DNSMadeEasy all advertise themselves as Anycast-enabled networks.
Therefore my assumption is that each of these DNS services transparently offer me those two killer features: multi-IP-to-domain mapping AND routing clients to the closest node.
However, each of these services seem to separate out these two functionalities, referring to the 2nd one (routing clients to closest node) as "GeoDNS", "GeoIP" or "Global Traffic Director" and charge extra for the service.
If a core tenant of an Anycast-capable system is to already do this, why is this functionality being earmarked as this extra feature? What is this "GeoDNS" feature doing that a standard Anycast DNS service won't do (according to the definition of Anycast from Wikipedia -- I understand what is being advertised, just not why it isn't implied already).
I get extra-confused when a DNS service like Route53 that doesn't support this nebulous "GeoDNS" feature lists functionality like:
Fast – Using a global anycast network of DNS servers around the world, Route 53 is designed to automatically route your users to the optimal location depending on network conditions. As a result, the service offers low query latency for your end users, as well as low update latency for your DNS record management needs.
... which sounds exactly like what GeoDNS is intended to do, but geographically directing clients is something they explicitly don't support it yet.
Ultimately I am looking for the two following features from a DNS provider:
- Map multiple IP addresses to a single domain name (like google.com, amazon.com, etc. does)
- Utilize a DNS service that will respond to client requests for that domain with the IP address of the nearest server to the requestee.
As mentioned, it seems like this is all part of an "Anycast" DNS service (all of which these services are), but the features and marketing I see from them suggest otherwise, making me think I need to learn a bit more about how DNS works before making a deployment choice.
Thanks in advance for any clarifications.
I currently have 2 servers, using cPanel/WHM. The first one is a VPS hosted in London (we'll call it "international") and the second one is a dedicated server located in my country (we'll call it "local").
"local" will have unlimited local bandwidth, however it will only have 1Mbps of international bandwidth.
I need to host a single website (or maybe multiple websites) on both servers and serve the visitor based on their origin country. I mean, when the visitor is from my own country the data will be served from "local", and if the visitor is from any other country the data will be served from "international".
Both types of visitor can perform read/write operations on the servers and I need to sync files and databases between both servers, as both server will have updated files and database.
So, how can this be possible regarding the DNS and synchronisation? Or what's easy and possible? Can anyone guide me with the steps I have to perform?
Let's say:
- I have a website written in English and shown on www.example.com.
- The website is on a US server now (based on cPanel/WHM) at the IP address 192.0.2.0.
- I can manage the DNS of example.com using a control panel to add/modify any records: A, MX, etc. (Currently, all A records are obviously pointing to 192.0.2.0.)
I would like that when a person in the US visits www.example.com the website is shown by the server in US, but when a person in Europe visits, the website is shown by a server in the UK.
Is this possible using the same domain (with no sub domain redirections such as us.example.com and uk.example.com) by simply adding/modifying DNS records?
If (1) is YES, how do I set up the DNS records of www.example.com in order to accomplish this?
If (1) is NO, are there other solutions available to accomplish this, and what are these solutions?