While most SD-WAN implementations focus heavily on traffic steering, security, and failover mechanisms, one key element is often overlooked: DNS (Domain Name System). DNS plays a crucial role in how efficiently and reliably users connect to the internet and access applications, making it a foundational service for any networking solution. Ignoring its importance can lead to network slowdowns, connectivity issues, and security vulnerabilities.
The Critical Role of DNS
DNS is essentially the internet's phonebook. It translates human-readable domain names (like nepeannetworks.com) into IP addresses, enabling devices to locate and connect to websites and services. Any disruption or inefficiency in DNS resolution can create cascading problems across all network services.
For SD-WANs, where high performance, resiliency, and security are the key selling points, DNS becomes even more critical. A poorly configured or unreliable DNS setup can lead to downtime, latency, or even security breaches. This makes ensuring high availability of DNS essential for SD-WAN operations.
Why DNS Should Aim for Five-Nines Availability
"Five-nines" availability means 99.999% uptime, which translates to less than 5.26 minutes of downtime per year. For DNS, this level of availability ensures that name resolution services are always operational. Given the centrality of DNS to network operations, any DNS failure could compromise the entire SD-WAN, resulting in loss of service for critical business applications.
Without such robust DNS availability, users may experience sluggish performance when accessing cloud applications, online services, or even internal resources—issues that SD-WAN is designed to mitigate. Given that the first step in nearly any communication is DNS resolution, making this bulletproof should be a priority.
Here is an example where Cloudflare failed:
Nepean Network's Bulletproof DNS Architecture
Nepean Network’s SD-WAN recognizes this often-overlooked aspect of SD-WAN design and incorporates a DNS architecture that aims to address these challenges.
Nepean Networks uses DNSMASQ as its edge DNS resolver, which provides DNS caching and forwarding capabilities. This improves name resolution times and reduces latency by handling frequent DNS queries locally rather than relying on upstream servers for every request.
But what really sets Nepean Networks apart is its innovative approach to upstream DNS resolution. It utilizes three separate DNS resolvers:
Quad9 (known for its emphasis on security and privacy),
Cloudflare (famous for its speed and DDoS protection), and
OpenDNS (recognized for its robust security features).
To further bolster performance and reliability, Nepean Networks configures DNSMASQ with the "all-servers" setting. This configuration queries all three upstream DNS resolvers simultaneously and uses the response from the fastest server. The result is:
Faster DNS Resolution: By using the fastest responding server, name resolution time is significantly reduced, leading to performance improvements across all network services.
Enhanced Redundancy: Should one or more DNS services fail or be slow to respond, the other resolvers ensure that queries are still resolved quickly and reliably, ensuring high availability.
The DNS Blind Spot in Other SD-WAN Solutions
Many SD-WAN solutions either overlook DNS entirely or treat it as an afterthought, relying on a single DNS provider or poorly optimized resolvers. This exposes these solutions to several risks:
Single Point of Failure: Relying on one DNS service increases the risk of downtime in case of DNS server issues or outages.
Performance Bottlenecks: Slow DNS resolution can lead to delays in network traffic, especially for applications with frequent DNS lookups.
Security Risks: Without built-in security features like DNS filtering or malware protection, the network may become vulnerable to DNS-based attacks.
Nepean Networks, on the other hand, not only eliminates these risks but also provides performance improvements by focusing on DNS as a core part of its SD-WAN architecture.
Wrap
DNS is a fundamental part of SD-WAN that should not be ignored. With Nepean Network's SD-WAN implementation, DNS becomes bulletproof through the combination of DNSMASQ, multiple upstream resolvers, and intelligent configuration. The result is a faster, more resilient, and more secure name resolution process that ensures the overall network performs at its best—even when other components experience failures or slowdowns.
By emphasizing the importance of DNS in its SD-WAN solution, Nepean Networks delivers superior uptime, performance, and reliability—offering a competitive edge over other vendors who fail to give DNS the attention it deserves.
Ronald Bartels ensures that Internet inhabiting things are connected reliably online at Nepean Networks - the leading specialized SD-WAN provider in South Africa. Learn more about the best SD-WAN in the world: 👉Contact Nepean🚀
