Synchronizing DNS data with Cloud Sync

With IBM® Cloud Sync, you can continuously translate and synchronize DNS zones, records, and traffic steering configurations across multiple DNS providers. The direction of data flow depends on which is your primary DNS provider.

Traditionally, DNS data moves from primary to secondary providers through zone transfer (XFR) protocols at defined periods of time. In contrast, Cloud Sync moves data from DNS providers through APIs and the Cloud Sync data translation layer. This allows for seamless transfer of data without zone transfer limits. When you add, modify, or delete zones and records within the primary DNS service, changes are automatically translated and published to the connected external provider network.

Note: Currently, Amazon Route 53 is the only external provider

Synchronizing DNS data from Amazon Route 53

If NS1 Connect is your secondary DNS provider, you can use Cloud Sync to synchronize DNS data from Route 53 to NS1 Connect.

Refer to Configuring DNS data flow from Route 53 to NS1 Connect for setup instructions.

Synchronizing DNS data from NS1 Connect

If NS1 Connect is your primary DNS provider, you can use Cloud Sync to send data from NS1 Connect to an Route 53 network or, to save backups versions of zone data, to an Amazon S3 bucket.

Cloud Sync translates specialized configurations from NS1 Connect, such as Filter Chain configurations and ALIAS records, to standard configurations that are compatible with Route 53.

To learn about synchronizing data from NS1 Connect to Route 53, refer to Configuring DNS data flow from NS1 Connect to Route 53.

DNS providers that can be integrated through Cloud Sync

Cloud Sync can be integrated with Route 53.

In the future, Cloud Sync will be integrated with more cloud DNS providers, such as Microsoft™ Azure and Google Cloud.

Types of DNS data that is synchronized through Cloud Sync

Cloud Sync synchronizes the following DNS data between NS1 Connect and Route 53:

Zones
Records
Traffic steering configurations
Data feeds
Monitoring jobs

Some restrictions and differences apply to DNS data when synchronized between NS1 Connect and Route 53.

Table 1. Restrictions or differences when synchronizing DNS data between NS1 Connect and Route 53
Type of Data	Restrictions or differences
Zones	Fully qualified domain names (FQDN) must be unique. The same FQDN cannot be used in a zone in both NS1 Connect and Route 53. Cloud Sync does not support versioned zones in NS1 Connect.
Records	Cloud Sync supports all record types that Route 53 supports except for Secure Shell Fingerprint (SSHFP) records. REDIRECT records aren't used in Route 53 and Cloud Sync doesn't translate REDIRECT records.
Data feeds	Some restrictions are in place when synchronizing data feed configurations from NS1 Connect. If automatic failover is configured by connecting an NS1 Connect monitoring job or a third-party monitoring job to the Up metadata field, the Up metadata value is reflected in the outbound data flow; however, all other metadata fields that are updated dynamically are ignored.
Monitoring jobs	The minimum frequency for monitoring jobs differ between NS1 Connect and Route 53. The minimum frequency for an NS1 Connect synthetic monitoring job is 30 seconds or 60 seconds, depending on your plan type. In Route 53, the configurable frequencies for health checks are 10 seconds and 30 seconds.

Simultaneous synchronization

Making changes concurrently or simultaneously to the same zone or record in one DNS application and then synchronizing those changes to the other DNS application is not supported. As a consequence, in Route 53, you cannot edit any zone or record data that was created in NS1 Connect. Doing so causes the configurations to drift from each other.