DNS can do some amazing things since it’s the start of all Internet traffic. Not only can DNS help provide performance and uptime, but it also has a few tricks up its sleeve such as DNS failover. DNS Failover offers you the ability to simply change a DNS entry to an alternate or backup IP address on the fly in the event of a failure on the primary.

DNS Failover requires a server monitoring component that tells the DNS when to utilize the backup server. These monitors check your server or Internet resource from multiple points across the globe at regular intervals and work together to determine if there is an outage or if it’s a one time Internet “burp”. Multiple monitoring points are a critical aspect to this setup, ensuring there are no “false positives” causing a failover scenario

Another critical aspect of ensuring DNS failover works is low TTL or DNS cache times. The cache time tells other DNS servers how long to store the last answer before asking again. The lower the TTL the faster your visitors will get to the backup IP upon a failure. Having low TTL’s on your DNS records can definitely cause higher QPM/QPS (DNS Queries per Minute/Second) on your account, but in many cases the advantages outweighs the costs.

It costs a ton of money, time and resources to build a brand – you shouldn’t loose them from a simple server or website outage. DNS Failover can direct your customers to a backup in mere seconds and save you thousands while doing so. To learn more about Managed DNS and DNS Failover, see CloudfloorDNS.com and our DNS Failover Service

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