Release notes

The release notes provide a summary of the new and enhanced features in IBM® NS1 Connect®.

Known issues

October 2025

  • New: Launch of IBM Cloud Sync. Cloud Sync is a software as a service (SaaS) application that synchronizes DNS data and backs up and restores DNS data across multiple DNS cloud providers. You can synchronize DNS data between NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53 in real time without zone transfer limits. You can also backup DNS data in near real time to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) object storage and, if needed, restore data from S3.
  • Enhanced: The Pulsar real user monitoring (RUM) feature is updated so that you can have deeper insight into why NS1 Connect routes your traffic based on the metrics collected.
    • A new visualization shows decisions by RUM filter. You can view why a routing decision was made with counts of decisions by RUM filter. Statistics by time, geography, record, and source ASN are available. You can dive into how often your performance and availability thresholds make an impact on your traffic.
    • A refreshed user interface has a new look and feel with quick data exports. You can view the Pulsar filters and decisions all in one place.
    • Enhancements to error reporting show errors by geography and record.
    • ASN 1-day and 7-day changes show how many RUM decisions are made by NS1 Connect by ASN and how it changes over the previous day and the same day a week ago.
    Pulsar RUM traffic steering is available as an add-on feature to a Premium plan.
  • New: Launch of NS1 Connect 30-day free trial offer.
  • New: The user interface for creating a monitoring job has a new look and feel using the IBM Carbon design system. Monitoring job functionality remains the same.
  • Enhanced: The Notify failback function on the monitoring job is renamed to Automatic recovery to more accurately describe the function. Automatic recovery is turned on by default so that if a monitoring job is down and then returns to an up state, NS1 Connect automatically updates the job status to Up.

August 2025

  • Enhanced: Alerts center now encompasses more features to send notifications about important events related to your account and DNS configuration:
    • You can set alerts to notify you when usage for query, records, monitor, and Filter Chain configurations reach a defined limit. If your plan includes Managed DNS for China, or Pulsar real user monitoring, you can set up alerts for those resources also. If you have existing record and query usage alerts set up through your user account, IBM support will migrate those alerts to Alerts center.
    • Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) certificate expiry: If your plan includes single sign-on (SSO), you can set an alert to notify you when certificates are about to expire or if they already expired.
    • Secure Socket Layer/Transfer Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificate expiry for HTTPS redirects: You can set an alert to notify you before the certificates expire.

    You can read more about the changes in the Alert center upgrade blog.

  • New: Launch of the Standard plan. The Standard plan includes:
    • Spike protection
    • 50 million queries per month
    • 1 thousand DNS records
    • 50 HTTPS redirects
    • 2 monitoring jobs
    • 1 Filter Chain for advanced traffic steering
    • Zone versioning
  • Enhanced: The Essentials plan is now at a more affordable price with streamlined features. The Essentials plan include now includes:
    • HTTP redirects
    • 5 HTTPS redirects
    • 1 thousand DNS records
    • 1 Filter Chain for advanced traffic steering
    • 2 monitoring jobs
    The new limits and price take effect on the renewal date of your Essentials plan.
  • Enhanced: The free edition plan now includes:
    • HTTP redirects
    • 1 HTTPS redirect
    • 2 monitoring jobs

July 2025

  • New: Launch of IBM Cloud Sync for Public Preview. With Cloud Sync, you can synchronize DNS data between NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53 in real time without zone transfer limits.
  • Enhanced: Updated lame delegation hijacking prevention capabilities strengthens DNS integrity. The new safeguards require no manual intervention. You can read more about these changes and their impact by reading the Protecting Your DNS: NS1 Connect’s enhanced defense against lame delegation hijacking blog post.

June 2025

  • Enhanced feature: You can use OpenTelemetry (OTel) to integrate your time series database (TSDB) with DNS Insights. With OpenTelemetry protocol (OTLP), you can use token-based authentication in your requests to verify the authenticity of user credentials.

May 2025

  • The Activity log page has a new design. The user interface for the activity logs was redesigned using the IBM Carbon design system. Activity log functionality remains the same.
  • New feature: Two new zone transfer features are available for secondary zones:
    • You can specify that a primary name server sends NOTIFY messages only and does not transfer zone data.
    • You can set a secondary zone to use transaction signature (TSIG) to verify the authenticity of the messages and responses from the primary name server.
  • New feature: Users with a free edition plan can close their NS1 Connect account.
  • New feature: Users with a paid plan can access their single sign-on (SSO) ID to configure SSO through a third-party identity management service.
  • Enhanced feature: With the redesigned Usage and billing dashboard of NS1 Connect, you can track your account usage and limits for each billing period, export data about your account usage, and analyze your query usage. You can also view details about your plan.

April 2025

  • Datasets has a new design. The user interface for datasets was redesigned as part of ongoing updates to NS1 Connect using the IBM Carbon design system. Datasets functionality remains the same.

March 2025

  • New feature: NS1 Connect offers the following record types to expand the capabilities and features of our platform to better support your DNS needs.
    • APL
    • GPOS
    • IPSECKEY
    • OpenPGPKEY
    • SSHFP
    • URI

December 2024

  • New feature: DNS answers can be cloned to reduce time spent on creating answers or answer groups.
  • New feature: The Alerts center is a central location where you can automate and manage external notifications based on events related to your NS1 Connect account or DNS configuration. Currently, you can only configure alerts related to failed incoming zone transfers or failed connections with a primary server.

November 2024

  • Support for IPv6 addresses when defining IP allow lists globally or for individual users, teams, and API keys.

August 2024

  • New feature: Account permissions for monitoring jobs can be set to view, create, edit, or delete to restrict access to monitoring jobs.

July 2024

  • Launch of Essentials plan for NS1 Connect customers who need greater scale and functionality than the free edition plan. Learn more.

June 2024

  • New feature: URL redirects over HTTPS - The new URL redirect functionality allows you to configure and authenticate URL redirects over HTTPS. You can use the configuration tools to configure a redirect from one or more source URLs (mapping to one or more of your DNS zones) to a defined target, and then create and manage SSL/TLS certificates directly in the NS1 Connect UI. Once configured, a new REDIRECT record type appears in the relevant zone. Learn more.

April 2024

  • Support for NS1 Connect Premium plan customers moved to IBM support - Part of NS1 Connect's transition to IBM includes a new support platform available to customers on the Premium or other paid plan. Primary account administrators can open a support case by going to www.ibm.com/mysupport.
    Note: You may be required to create an IBM ID if you don't already have one.

February 2024

  • New feature: Historical query data sets - The new functionality allows you to generate and manage custom data sets — each containing information about your domain traffic. Supported data set types include the number of queries, the number of EBOT responses, the number of NXD responses, and records with zero queries. You can generate one-time or recurring data sets, specify email recipients (optional), and define a specific "scope" of DNS resources (zones and records) and time frame to cover in the data set configuration. Learn more.

January 2024

  • Announcing the NS1 Connect community on IBM TechXchange - The community provides a space for NS1 Connect users and experts to discuss best practices, learn more about different features and functionality, and find troubleshooting details that might not be included in the product documentation. Join the community.

2023

  • New feature: Zone versioning - The new feature enables you to create backup versions of zone data that can be restored later. This can be useful for troubleshooting or to make temporary changes.
  • New feature: Webhook notifier authentication - When configuring a custom webhook notifier for monitoring alerts, you can now enter one or more HTTP headers. This can be used to authenticate alerts (POST requests) from NS1 Connect.
  • New feature: Export activity log - You can export the activity log in various formats — including JSON, CSV, XML, Excel, HTML, or PDF. You can also view the impact of the change within the “Summary” side panel.
  • Update: New country available for geographic metadata - You can select Kosovo as the country for geolocation metadata within a DNS record or answer.
  • UI/UX: Users, teams & API keys - You can now search, sort, and filter lists of users, teams, and API keys in the UI.
  • UI/UX: Account activity log - You can now search, sort, and filter entries in your account activity log. Additionally, you can preview activity details in the Summary panel.
  • Fixed: Issues with URLFWD records - A bug preventing the creation of multiple URLFWD records within a zone is now resolved. Additionally, when creating URLFWD records, the modal now shows the entire "From" (source) FQDN as opposed to just the URL path.
  • Fixed: Issue with notifier lists - A bug causing duplicate entries in the notifier list configuration modal and page is resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with Pulsar Decisions reports - On the Pulsar page, a bug preventing the population of data related to decisions per global ASN is now resolved. Also, a bug causing inaccurate filtering of Pulsar Decision data is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with sorting monitors by date - On the Monitors page, a bug preventing users from sorting the list of monitors by the date they were created is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue deleting data sources and feeds - A bug preventing users from deleting old data sources and feeds is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with "Override address" setting in ALIAS records - A bug preventing ALIAS records from overriding the corresponding A or AAAA records is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with 2FA login - A bug forcing users who log in using two-factor authentication to refresh the page to view the portal is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with answer group naming - A bug preventing users from including a dash "-" in the name of an answer group is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with deleting IP allow lists - A bug preventing users from using the API to delete an IP allow list is now resolved.
  • Fixed: Issue with zone imports - A bug causing zone imports to fail without notice is now resolved.
  • New: Support for ALIAS records within a secondary zone - Adding an ALIAS record to a secondary zone enables CNAME-like behavior at the secondary zone apex.
  • Updated: Improvements to the performance and speed of the DNS record search. - Additionally, for API users, a new “pagination” parameter to the DNS search endpoint (/v1/dns/record/search) allows you to enable or disable pagination via the new pagination parameter. By default, pagination is enabled unless you include a wildcard in the URL path.
  • Updated: NS1 Connect nameserver pools assigned to new zones are now randomized, whereas previously, all zones were assigned to the same nameserver pool. - Optionally, you can contact Support to request nameserver pinning, ensuring the same nameserver pool is assigned to each new zone in your account.
  • Now available: NS1 Connect Terraform provider version 2.0 - This update includes bug fixes and utilizes the latest Terraform SDK.
  • New: Account administrators can reset a user’s two-factor authentication (2FA) in the UI - Once reset, users can log into the NS1 portal and reconfigure their 2FA if desired or required.
  • Fixed: An issue where the monthly DNS query count was reset prematurely if an invoice was issued mid-cycle is now resolved.
  • Fixed: An issue where zone file imports were not included in the account activity log is now resolved.
  • Fixed: An issue preventing users from scrolling through the list of “down” monitoring probes on the dashboard of the UI is now resolved.
  • Fixed: An issue in the UI where forcing a monitor up or down did not automatically update the status of all associated data sources is now resolved.
  • Fixed: An issue on the dashboard of the UI involving the incorrect axis labeling of the DNS query graphs is now resolved.
  • Now available: Golang SDK version 2.7.4, including support for the NS1 networks (/network) endpoint.
  • Fixed: An issue on the Dashboard page where the DNS query graphs displayed incorrect network IDs is now resolved.
  • Fixed: On the Zones page, labels next to linked zones displaying their corresponding targets are now truncated to prevent text overflow that obscures other information.
  • Fixed: An issue where the UI required the user to refresh their browser after creating a URLFWD record is now resolved.
  • Fixed: An issue in the UI previously allowed users to select from a list of up to 2500 zones when configuring an “allow list” or “deny list” during permissions configuration is now resolved. This issue prevented customers with more than 2500 zones from setting allow or deny permissions on some zones.

Contact IBM support with questions about new features releases, fixes, and other updates that occurred before 2023.