An origin goes down at 03:12. Nobody wakes up.
Premium DNS adds a second origin to your zone and asks both of them, from the nameserver itself, whether they are still answering. When one stops, it comes out of the answer. When it recovers, it goes back in. This is that ninety seconds.
- 60 s
- between health checks
- 30 s
- record TTL, so a resolver cannot hold a dead origin for longer
- 443
- the port checked, by default
- Both origins answeringThe zone hands out both addresses, weighted the way you set them.
- t+0sThe second origin stops answeringThe port stops accepting connections. Nothing is on fire yet: half your visitors are about to get a dead address.
- t+60sThe check missesThe nameserver probes the origin itself rather than asking a monitoring service to tell it later.
- t+60sIt comes out of the answerThe zone stops handing out that address. Every new lookup gets only the origin that works.
- t+90sThe last stale answer expiresA resolver that already had the old answer holds it for the record TTL and no longer. That is the real worst case, and it is thirty seconds.
- The origin comes backIt starts accepting connections again on its own or because you fixed it.
- It is put backThe next check passes and the address returns to the answer. You did not do anything.
What you are actually buying
- Two origins per zone
- One primary and one standby, or two live and weighted. Two is the limit, and saying so is more useful than implying there is no limit.
- Weights from 1 to 100
- Split traffic between the two origins in whatever proportion you want, and change it without touching your application.
- Minimum TTL of 60 seconds
- On the failover record itself the TTL is 30 seconds, which is what bounds how long a resolver can serve an origin that has already gone.
- Checks run from the nameserver
- The nameserver that answers the query is the thing doing the probing, so there is no gap between a monitor noticing and DNS being changed. There is no webhook and nothing to configure.
- A million queries a month, per zone
- Counted per zone. Nothing is throttled and nothing is cut off if you go past it.
Four things this is not, that you will see claimed elsewhere.
Every one of these was on this page before today. They came off because the product does not do them, and a claim a buyer can disprove with one command discredits the true ones next to it.
- Not anycastOur nameservers are four separate machines, one per country, not one address announced from many places. One dig disproves an anycast claim in about four seconds, so we do not make it.
- No geographic steeringIt is built and it is switched off, because the region codes never matched what the server understands. The panel shows it as coming, and so do we.
- DNSSEC is not part of thisIt is on by default on every zone we host, free ones included. Selling it here would be selling you something you already have.
- No query graphThe counter that would feed one is not wired to anything today, so a chart here would be a picture of a zero.
Included: one million queries a month for that zone, a second origin, health checks and weighted routing.
Past the million: nothing is throttled and nothing stops resolving. The overage rate is shown in the panel before it is charged. It is not printed here because it is ratified in New Zealand dollars only, and quoting you a New Zealand figure while every other number on this page is in your own currency is the exact thing this rebuild removed.
Not sure you need it? Authoritative DNS, the record editor, DNSSEC and the four nameservers come with every domain at no cost. See what free DNS already does