Service Update: Multi-DNS

StreamShark has recently transitioned to a multi-DNS setup. In short this update has greatly improved the reliability of the StreamShark platform in the event of an upstream DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on one of our DNS providers.

Traditionally websites would use a single DNS provider to service all DNS requests. However in our new setup, we’re using two DNS providers to service these requests.

In recent times DDoS attacks targeting DNS providers has become much more common. A prime example of this type of DDoS attack occurred October 21st 2016 targeting Dyn, one of the largest DNS providers. The DDoS attack resulted in many of the world’s largest websites, including Twitter, Reddit, Netflix and Paypal, being unavailable for a number of hours.

Luckily we were not impacted by this attack, however, it shows that even large companies and websites were not prepared for this kind of scenario. At StreamShark we pride ourselves on providing exceptional reliability and performance, which is why we’ve implemented this new DNS strategy.

As seen in the chart below, if one of our DNS providers is unavailable, the user will still get a response from the other DNS provider as our DNS providers are on separate networks. It is still possible (but unlikely) to have both providers down. If this was ever the case, it’s likely most of the internet would be down too…

If you have any questions about this update, or wish to learn more about multi-DNS, leave a comment below.