Todd/Chris,
It makes me wonder how UltraDNS got a contract to manage the domain on all of two nameservers hosted on the same subnet, given that they were supposed to have deployed "geographically diverse" (or something like that) servers. But then, we know ICANN smokes the crack liberally at times....
Just because they hosts are on the same subnet and are apparently behind the same end device for you doesn't make them non-geographically diverse if they are really anycast pods, does it? It really just means one anycast pod was down for a time :(
Not even that: (a) being on the same /24 doesn't make them on the same subnet. We have this thing called CIDR nowadays. Hell, being on the same /32 doesn't make them on the same (physical) subnet with anycast. (b) they aren't on the same /24 anyway. Specs needed. Compare: amb@shed:~$ host tld1.ultradns.net tld1.ultradns.net has address 204.74.112.1 ^===***** amb@shed:~$ host tld2.ultradns.net tld2.ultradns.net has address 204.74.113.1 ^===***** A quick inspection from your favourite looking glass will show that there is a /23 and a /24 separately announced. Hence: (c) at least from here, the routes are pretty diverse in any case (see below). IE not only is (say) a west coast host served by different servers than a European host, but the two European hosts are served by different servers. Alex amb@shed:~$ traceroute tld1.ultradns.net traceroute to tld1.ultradns.net (204.74.112.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 195.82.114.1 (195.82.114.1) 0.917 ms 4.344 ms 6.131 ms 2 bdr1.lon-th1.mailbox.net.uk (195.82.97.226) 10.080 ms 4.050 ms 1.694 ms 3 195.82.96.70 (195.82.96.70) 1.552 ms 1.553 ms 2.138 ms 4 ge-1-3-0.r01.londen03.uk.bb.verio.net (217.79.161.10) 1.694 ms 11.200 ms 4.134 ms 5 ge-1-2.a01.londen03.uk.ra.verio.net (213.130.47.83) 150.565 ms 148.296 ms 199.156 ms 6 UltraDNS-0.a01.londen03.uk.ra.verio.net (213.130.48.38) 14.549 ms 8.962 ms 22.128 ms 7 dellfwabld.ultradns.net (204.74.106.2) 21.371 ms !H 27.196 ms !H 31.775 ms !H amb@shed:~$ traceroute tld2.ultradns.net traceroute to tld2.ultradns.net (204.74.113.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 195.82.114.1 (195.82.114.1) 1.611 ms 3.728 ms 3.501 ms 2 bdr1.lon-th1.mailbox.net.uk (195.82.97.226) 8.889 ms 1.704 ms 3.333 ms 3 if-4-1-0.bb2.London.Teleglobe.net (195.219.2.1) 57.452 ms 140.352 ms 208.421 ms 4 if-6-0.core1.London.Teleglobe.net (195.219.96.82) 2.463 ms 7.007 ms 7.525 ms 5 if-1-0.core2.NewYork.Teleglobe.net (207.45.220.37) 82.125 ms 73.374 ms 92.908 ms 6 if-4-0.bb8.NewYork.Teleglobe.net (66.110.8.130) 76.796 ms 73.816 ms 77.613 ms 7 p3-3.IR1.NYC-NY.us.xo.net (206.111.13.13) 93.642 ms 83.092 ms 102.477 ms 8 p5-1-0-2.RAR2.NYC-NY.us.xo.net (65.106.3.65) 72.338 ms 72.658 ms 71.785 ms 9 p6-0-0.RAR1.Washington-DC.us.xo.net (65.106.0.2) 117.226 ms 76.936 ms 78.430 ms 10 p6-1-0.MAR1.Washington-DC.us.xo.net (65.106.3.182) 77.206 ms 84.026 ms 77.201 ms 11 p0-0.CHR1.Washington-DC.us.xo.net (207.88.87.10) 85.094 ms 77.777 ms 77.614 ms 12 64.124.112.141.ultradns.com (64.124.112.141) 85.226 ms 77.912 ms 78.143 ms 13 dellfwpxvn.ultradns.net (204.74.104.2) 77.940 ms !H 78.441 ms !H 97.738 ms !H