What is Geographically Redundant DNS?

Yesterday, Nerds On Site launched our new geographically redundant DNS system, and made it a standard option for all our shared hosting clients. This is the first in a series of three articles on geographically redundant DNS, designed to answer the What, Where and Why of our new service.
You may be wondering just what exactly geographically redundant DNS is? First, let’s explain what DNS is. DNS stands for the ‘Domain Name System’, which is a naming system for computers, websites and any resource connected to the Internet. DNS is the system that enables your browser to find your website, and enables your clients to find your website. DNS is usually invisible; it works in the background to make the Internet work and come alive on your computer. What’s important to understand is the DNS supports your website, your FTP access, your email and any other hosted service that you have. If your DNS service fails for any reason, your website and email will immediately stop working for you and all your clients.
The majority of all hosting providers provide a single DNS system to all their hosted clients. Like many reputable hosting providers, Nerds On Site provides a redundant DNS system that creates a new level of redundancy for our clients. This means that if one DNS server fails, our redundant DNS server instantly and seamlessly takes over, ensuring that clients can still find your website and can still send emails to you.
Nerds On Site goes well beyond redundancy however, by providing geographical redundancy. This service means that our redundant DNS servers are located in another data center from our primary DNS servers. In fact, Nerds On Site has located our redundant servers in another country completely from our primary servers, thus guaranteeing that no issue can take down both servers simultaneously. This means that our clients are protected even in the event of a full data center failure, which is a service that is especially rare in the industry.
DNS is the service that ensures the world can find your business online, and if you host with Nerds On Site you’ll know that your DNS service will simply work, allowing you to immediately forget just what DNS is in the first place. Contact our team, and learn how we can increase your website’s reliability and availablility.