[dns-operations] After Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Wave... Google DNS

[Paul Vixie]

> Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:47:29 +0100
> From: Otmar Lendl <ol at bofh.priv.at>
> 
> > This is going to throw a wrench into CDNs like Akamai that use the IP
> > of the requesting DNS server to determine where to direct your request:
> 
> That effect might become less pronounced once Google deploys their DNS
> service in a massive anycast infrastructure. Akamai will then see the
> request coming from at least the same region as where the end-user is.

this presumes that network locality is a universal property and that one's
connectivity to X starting from provider Y will be similar to one's
connectivity to X starting from provider Z.  even if many instances of
X, Y, and Z peer aggressively in-region, this remains false for enough X's,
Y's, and Z's as to render the underlying presumption "statistically silly".

> Actually, the best move Akamai could do is start a rival DNS resolving
> infrastructure. If they use anycasted recursors at each of their CDN nodes,
> that would really simplify their CDN algorithm as the node that gets the
> DNS request is very likely to be the optimal one for the actual content
> delivery, too.

this is the only way to make it actually work.  but since making it work is
not a first order goal, i'd rather akamai and other CDN's help with an
education campaign about how easy it is to run one's own recursive DNS.  and
maybe help create a windows kit for it.  (mac already has the software but
even there, a config kit for it would help a lot.)