GeoDNS explained

Every time users request a website, and it takes a long time to be loaded, they leave! Website owners know that it could be that the server is busy or the server is located too far from the user. But users do not care and just abandon the site and maybe never comes back.

That’s called latency. A severe problem for website owners that, fortunately, can be fixed!

What is GeoDNS, and how does it work?

GeoDNS (Geographical Domain Name System) means a traffic distribution process based on the requests’ location. This is possible due to a group of name servers strategically located on different spots (regions, countries, continents).

When a visitor requests a domain, a long and complex process of domain resolving gets triggered. And it must happen in a few seconds for the site to be served successfully and fast.

Once the visitor types a domain in the browser, a request will travel to a DNS resolver. In the case of GeoDNS, the DNS server will read the visitor’s IP address to know the user’s location. Already knowing that the request will be sent to the closest server. Finally, this last will serve visitor’s request.

The difference between a traditional DNS service and GeoDNS is that the traditional DNS servers have the same IP address for the domain. The GeoDNS have different IP addresses, depending on the region, and that is the magic boosting the speed.

Benefits of having GeoDNS

There are clear benefits of enabling GeoDNS for your domain.

Optimized distribution of traffic

Intelligent management of traffic is possible through GeoDNS. It is a load balancing solution. It ensures the closest nameserver to the visitor will respond to the request. Besides, through this distribution, traffic overload can avoid automatically.

Uptime enhancement

Having not a DNS server but a group of them is a great benefit. In case a server is down, the visitor’s request for sure will find another server that will answer.

Faster loading

Fast loading is vital to improve the users’ experience and a key factor to be ranked better in search engines. Considering the smart location process of GeoDNS, waiting time definitely will be shorter for your visitors. This is already a great advantage but, now that offering a positive user experience will also be taken into account to be positioned in the first search results, the benefit is even more valuable.

IP filtering (Geofencing)

To deny access or direct users from a specific region, a website you choose can be done through IP filtering.

A singer, contracted exclusively by a British company, will release a new set of songs. The access to the new material can definitely be restricted through IP filtering just for British users. IP’s coming from other countries will be dropped.

Ventures who want to offer different contents per continent can configure the access aligned with that objective.

For whom GeoDNS is?

GeoDNS is good for all kinds of businesses. Small and medium websites would like to have it for growing. And large companies, for running smoothly the big needs they have.

But let’s say there are specific companies that can get the most out of it. International companies (tech, banking, and more) managing massive amounts of traffic, content platforms, and their need of delivery for a worldwide audience or e-commerce, always looking for high uptime and low latency to guarantee profits.

Conclusion

GeoDNS is a technology that offers real benefits to your business. If your company is growing internationally or if you are already global, keep it in mind. Big needs require advanced and efficient solutions!

How to create a CDN?

Speed, speed, speed! We all want our sites and applications to load as fast as possible. Each moment of delay might make your visitors go away. So one of the most common approaches to increase the speed of a website is to use a Content delivery network (CDN). But how to create a CDN?

What is CDN?

Why is CDN important?

The content delivery network is what the CDN abbreviation is. It is a complex solution that focuses on delivering content to visitors faster by using routing and cache methods.

There are DNS servers that server that will check the origin of the request and redirect to the closest cache server shortening the length and time of each request.

How does CDN work?

The idea is simple, there are DNS resolvers on the way that analyze the DNS request, and based on the origin of the request, they will provide the IP address of the closest cache server (called delivery nodes by some service providers).

Those DNS servers are strategically located. Depending on your DNS provider, you can have many and put more in your most important region.

Instead of having Anycast DNS, where all of the DNS servers have the same IP address, here you can use a service called GeoDNS or Traffic Director (depending on your provider) and set different IP addresses for the different regions.

That way, you won’t send all of the traffic to the same origin. You can have a second or third web hosting located in those important places for you.

You will use those servers as cache servers, and you will put their IP addresses for the DNS server nearby.

That way, the DNS request will go very fast to the first DNS resolver that can provide an answer, and after that, it will redirect to the cache server and saves a ton of time.

How to create CDN?

Choose a CDN provider or check a combination between GeoDNS and web hosting.

You can go straight to the big could like MS Azure or Amazon’s AWS and get a CDN from them. It will probably work fine, but it could be a lot more expensive.

Another option is to get a Managed DNS service and a few web hosting services at the locations that best suits you. That will save some money, and you can be less dependent on a single provider.

Set up your web hosting servers.

No matter which option you have chosen, you will need to decide where you want to have your data. Make it closer to your users so they can load your content fast.

You will need to get the IP addresses of the servers you have chosen and later use them with your DNS settings.

In your DNS, you will need to create a DNS load balancer. You must choose points of presence, where you will have a DNS server with DNS records. You will need to add the appropriate DNS records, use the server from before, and redirect the traffic to the closest server.

Most of the CDN DNS providers will have so-called Pull Zones. A pull zone will be your cache where images, CSS, and JavaScript will be saved automatically. You can create one and go to the next step.

WordPress settings for the cache plugin

Now that you have set up your CDN, you need to adjust your WordPress site. Use a cache plugin. In it, you need to enable page cache, stop minifying, enable database cache, stop object cache, enable browser cache. And the last step is the most important, enable CDN and choose the CDN type.

Conclusion

It is not really hard to create a CDN. Based on your provider, you will have different steps, but the basic idea is the same. Create one and enjoy the benefits.