From: richb@pioneer.ci.net [mailto:richb@pioneer.ci.net] Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 8:24 AM

Christian Nielsen <cnielsen@nielsen.net> wrote:

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ultradns does this and has a great product.

Interesting to read the faq on UltraDNS's website:

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Q. I read that your service is supposed to make use of several servers all over the world, but you only give people two server addresses to provide to their registrar. How do I make use of all the other servers?

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A. The two server addresses you supply your registrar when you set up a domain on the Managed DNS Service system are actually 'virtual' addresses that will route to the best possible server on our network, based on a number of factors. This highly intelligent mechanism allows you to achieve full redundancy and reliability with only two name server addresses actually listed. In fact, if the registrar would allow you to do so, you could achieve the same level of reliability with only one name server address.

Or maybe there have been a few extensions to BGP which I haven't learned about...;-)

It's not BGP! see www.3dns.com and www.f5.com for similar technology. As well as a clue or two. You might also ask yourself the difference between packet routing and query routing. While you're at it, better also ask how those wizards make cluster load balancing work. "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, to the uninitiated" paraphrased from Arthur C. Clark