Domain Name System:
Potential competitive edge for businesses

DNS represents an untapped resource for online businesses.

For any organization that relies on the Internet, Domain Name Service (DNS) provides the mechanism for interacting with customers, partners, and others. DNS is as critical as the routers and switches that make up the network, yet many IT organizations take it for granted—“It just works” is a common evaluation. That approach has two problems: it fails to take full advantage of the potential of DNS and it ignores the very real dangers inherent in a poorly managed DNS system. Ironically, it often takes a DNS attack or DNS-related downtime to underline the importance of DNS management.

Many smaller businesses rely on large service providers to handle DNS for queries or contract with a small “no-frills” provider for basic DNS management. While those approaches work to some degree, growing enterprises need a more scalable and dynamic solution that they can control and manage. Forward-looking businesses view DNS as an integral part of their online strategies, helping them present themselves to the world as they want to be seen. Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN as well as major newspapers harness the power of DNS to get their message across to customers and others.

DNS can be a powerful tool to support the growth of any business—and TorreyPoint knows how to get the most from the organization’s DNS infrastructure.

The TorreyPoint Domain Name Service (DNS) Solution transforms the DNS
infrastructure from a business expense into a strategic asset that enhances
the organization’s competitive position and protects against costly security
breaches and network outages.

TorreyPoint’s expertise spans the full range of DNS issues and opportunities.

Imagine the impact of these scenarios to an online business:

• A rogue DNS server—obviously set up by someone with malicious intent—hijacks the organization’s DNS. As a result, customers trying to access the corporate website instead are routed to a similar-looking site that tricks them into revealing their credit card or banking information.
• An online business needs to identify exactly who is accessing their site for marketing purposes. However, the IT group is having a hard time correlating IP addresses to users.
• The organization is growing rapidly, but the DNS infrastructure is not keeping up, resulting in downtime.

The TorreyPoint DNS solution offers solutions to these and other problems. Our engineering consultants are experts in a broad range of DNS-related issues such as:

• Dynamic DNS
• DNS security
• Geographic DNS
• IPv6 DNS
• Integration of DNS with other technologies
• DNS load balancing
• DNS resiliency and high availability
• Policies and procedures for DNS management

TorreyPoint combines this DNS-specific expertise with our extensive experience in all aspects of network design and operation to craft a custom solution that uses both open-source and proprietary products, depending on the need. We can offer individual services, for example, cleaning up a DNS deployment, or provide ongoing support for DNS as a managed service.

Transform DNS from a business expense into a strategic asset.

The return on an organization’s investment in the TorreyPoint DNS solution can be surprisingly
high—and lasting. Here are some typical areas where TorreyPoint can add value:

• IPv6 migration and DNS: Many organizations deploy a dual-stack network to smooth the transition to IPv6, essentially operating IPv4 and IPv6 in parallel for a period of time. This approach requires DNS servers that support the resolution of IPv6 addresses which must be populated with all of the organization’s nodes and addresses—a project that can represent as much as 30% of the effort of migrating to IPv6. TorreyPoint can offload this task.

Targeted marketing: TorreyPoint can show online businesses a number of concrete ways to use DNS to enhance its competitive posture:

• Deploy DNS load balancing to provide faster responses to customers
• Leverage geographical DNS to direct customers to specific services based on their location
  
• Boost DNS security to avoid embarrassing and costly breaches and service outages

Dynamic DNS: DDNS provides a mechanism by which a networked device updates its configuration information on the DNS server in real time. This technique delivers a number of benefits such as:

• Flexibility—Using DDNS allows businesses to make changes to the network infrastructure without having to update the DNS servers by hand.
  
• Accessibility—URL names are consistent when IP addresses change.
  
• Addressing—DDNS makes using dynamic addresses possible, thereby saving IPv4 address space and making management of IPv6 address space much more scalable.

TorreyPoint has delivered these and other solutions to enterprises of all sizes as well as government agencies and educational institutions. Explore how the TorreyPoint DNS solution can transform your DNS infrastructure from an operating expense to a strategic business asset.