We have 2 nameservers, they are; -
ns0.esystm.com (84.234.26.9)
ns1.esystm.com (84.234.26.10)
Do not provide the IPs unless requested.
Network Connections operates a distributed Domain Name Server (DNS)
System, continue to read below and we'll explain why our system
is better than most!
How does DNS work?
Machines deal in numbers, on the internet each machine is allocated
a unique number, called an IP address. So, for example, www.networkconnections.co.uk
has the IP address 84.234.26.4. Humans, on the other hand, aren't
very good at remembering numbers and so the convention of domain
names was invented. It is the Domain Name System (or DNS for short)
that maps a human-friendly domain name into an IP. When you visit
a website or check your email your browser or mail client will contact
a DNS server somewhere to find out which server it's meant to be
going to. Consider the DNS as watchmen, showing the way.
When you perform a lookup on a domain that is on our DNS the first
port of call is to one of the root name servers (unless it is already
cached) which will refer the request to our nameservers, which know
about the name in question and will return it's IP, allowing your
browser or mail client to find the server in question, and deliver
the content, or email(s).
We store information about the domains we're responsible for and
their IPs in text format Zone Files which reside on our nameservers.
Something called an A record points to a specific machine and says
"The site your are looking for is on THAT machine"
Why is a distributed DNS system like ours advantageous?
If we ever need to move an account between our servers we can very
easily because the zone files are separate from the server that
holds the site. Therefore moving an account from one server to another
is as easy as transferring the files and updating the A record.
Because there is no nameserver change there is no DNS propagation
time and no downtime. The move happens instantly.
Redundancy
Many companies have just one physical nameserver, which means that
if it fails for any reason new lookups will fail as the nameserver
responsible for yielding the IP does not respond. We have 4 different
nameservers,geographically separate from one another, so that should
one fail, requests for IPs will be seamlessly handled by the remaining
nameservers. All 4 would have to fail before anyone noticed a problem.
Hypothetically, if a nameserver did ever fail, we would be notified
immediately and could start fixing the problem. In the meantime
the other servers would take over serving requests until the downed
name server was brought back online. At this point we can sync all
changes in the zone files between them so that they are in exactly
the same state. As far as the end user is concerned there is no
downtime, failure to resolve or performance degradation.
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