The first thing you need to know about DNS outage is that you don’t want to experience it! A DNS outage can cause you an intense headache because it affects the operation of an online business entirely. It’s also not a pleasant situation for users because a DNS outage makes unavailable a site or an application they need to access.

And still, there is more you need to know about it!

What is a DNS outage?

A DNS outage is when a domain name can not be resolved to its associated IP address. It means your DNS (Domain Name System) network is experiencing a situation that stops functioning correctly. Therefore, the essential DNS resolution process for clients to load your website or application can’t happen.

All businesses require DNS to work properly to be available online. It’s in charge of essential processes, like the way users can access them through the Internet. Clients type the domain name they look for on the browser, and that triggers the search for its IP address. The browser can load the site when it gets the IP address. Without this, the only answer the browser will get is a disappointing error message.

Who can experience a DNS outage?

Bad news, all online businesses can experience a DNS outage. Being available on the Internet depends on the DNS infrastructure. The Internet itself relies on the good performance of the DNS. All types and sizes of websites, applications, and networks can experience a DNS outage.

How can I avoid a DNS outage?

• Plan your maintenance routines. Regular maintenance is a must to guarantee the health and security of your system. Sometimes, your authoritative nameservers can require procedures that will automatically stop your DNS functioning. Think about a necessary update or reboot. You can’t avoid those procedures, but you can plan and schedule them not to affect your operation during peak hours of traffic (sales). Efficient maintenance procedures should reduce the time a DNS outage affects your business.
• Prevent human errors. The main cause of DNS outages is humans’ mistakes while configuring DNS. You know that this task doesn’t allow a minimum error. A single typo can make your business unavailable for users. If your IT team still executes many tasks manually, the recommendation is to automate them as much as possible. Currently, you can do that through the use of easily accessible technology.
• Get redundancy. It’s simple. Operating with more than a single DNS nameserver makes a big difference. You can get redundancy through Secondary DNS servers or Anycast DNS. It’s your choice, but the idea is to rely on more than a single server that can fail or be attacked.
• Add DDoS protection. Cyber attacks happen daily, and making your online business unavailable is one of their evil goals. Shield your business and avoid DNS outages caused by cyber criminals.

Conclusion

Technology is great but is not infallible yet. So prevent now and avoid DNS outages and losses for your business!