Sync authoritative DNS configurations across providers without zone transfer (XFR) limitations
Overview
Modern organizations operate in distributed, hybrid environments that rely on multiple DNS and cloud providers. Maintaining consistent, accurate and resilient DNS configurations across multi-cloud networks can be difficult due to incompatible APIs, manual operations or legacy XFR (AXFR/IXFR) restrictions.
IBM Cloud® Sync delivers real-time DNS synchronization and cross-cloud orchestration, ensuring alignment of DNS zones, traffic steering metadata and routing policies across providers including IBM NS1® Connect and Amazon Route 53.
The result: continuous DNS automation for multi-cloud, streamlined operations and stronger multi-cloud resilience.
Powering your multi-cloud DNS
Strengthen your DNS strategy with seamless, automated synchronization across multi-provider environments. IBM Cloud Sync delivers:
- Automated DNS alignment between IBM NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53
- Intelligent DNS management with traffic steering consistency
- A DNS backup and restore solution for business continuity
- A resilient foundation for primary-secondary DNS failover
IBM Cloud Sync continuously synchronizes DNS zones, records and traffic steering metadata between Amazon Route 53 and NS1 Connect. This process ensures:
- Bidirectional, continuous DNS synchronization
- Zero dependence on legacy zone transfers (XFR)
- Reduced operational workload
- Faster updates and improved accuracy across clouds
Seamlessly sync DNS configurations with Amazon Route 53 without using XFR. Eliminate manual workarounds by converting and updating settings automatically. Help your business modernize its DNS infrastructure to maximize resilience, efficiency and growth potential.
IBM Cloud Sync is engineered to accurately synchronize not just basic zones and records but also the dynamic metadata associated with traffic steering and health checks bidirectionally. Cloud Sync preserves this advanced functionality across providers. It ensures that your network remains smart, responsive and resilient—not just replicated.
Build, deploy and synchronize DNS configurations across multiple vendors within minutes. Cloud Sync requires no storage of secrets and it makes integration fast, secure and scalable—crucial for lean teams and scaling enterprises.
Remove single points of failure by enabling the complete and continuous synchronization of your primary and secondary DNS architectures. This synchronization spans across Amazon Route 53 and NS1 Connect. This sync also ensures that a fully functional and up-to-date secondary DNS infrastructure is always ready to take over, significantly improving your disaster recovery posture and business continuity.
IBM Cloud Sync continuously synchronizes DNS zones, records and traffic steering metadata between Amazon Route 53 and NS1 Connect. This process ensures:
- Bidirectional, continuous DNS synchronization
- Zero dependence on legacy zone transfers (XFR)
- Reduced operational workload
- Faster updates and improved accuracy across clouds
Seamlessly sync DNS configurations with Amazon Route 53 without using XFR. Eliminate manual workarounds by converting and updating settings automatically. Help your business modernize its DNS infrastructure to maximize resilience, efficiency and growth potential.
IBM Cloud Sync is engineered to accurately synchronize not just basic zones and records but also the dynamic metadata associated with traffic steering and health checks bidirectionally. Cloud Sync preserves this advanced functionality across providers. It ensures that your network remains smart, responsive and resilient—not just replicated.
Build, deploy and synchronize DNS configurations across multiple vendors within minutes. Cloud Sync requires no storage of secrets and it makes integration fast, secure and scalable—crucial for lean teams and scaling enterprises.
Remove single points of failure by enabling the complete and continuous synchronization of your primary and secondary DNS architectures. This synchronization spans across Amazon Route 53 and NS1 Connect. This sync also ensures that a fully functional and up-to-date secondary DNS infrastructure is always ready to take over, significantly improving your disaster recovery posture and business continuity.
Connect your clouds to protect your business
With IBM Cloud Sync, your organization gains real-time synchronization across multiple DNS providers through secure APIs and a translation layer that normalizes configurations—enabling true cloud-native DNS management without XFR dependencies.
Resources
Introducing an automation and orchestration bridge between IBM NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53 with IBM Cloud Sync
Learn about bidirectional synchronization between Amazon Route 53 and IBM NS1 Connect through IBM Cloud Sync.
Unify clouds and simplify your DNS network
Discover how IBM Cloud Sync delivers resilient, secure and synchronized multicloud operations.
Cloud Sync FAQ
IBM Cloud Sync is a multi-cloud DNS synchronization and automation service that aligns DNS zones, records and traffic-steering configurations across cloud and on-premises DNS systems. It replaces fragile XFR-based sync with modern, API-driven cross-cloud alignment, enabling scalable, resilient and cloud-native DNS operations.
Enterprises running hybrid or multi-cloud DNS face drift, inconsistent configurations and operational burden. Cloud Sync provides:
- Continuous, bidirectional DNS synchronization
- Hybrid visibility and automation
- Consistent routing logic across providers
- Reduced dependency on manual scripts
Resulting in a dependable, scalable multi-cloud DNS architecture.
Cloud Sync uses secure APIs to normalize and synchronize DNS data across different providers. It ensures DNS configuration consistency by continuously translating and updating zones, routing logic and metadata—for example, aligning DNS between IBM NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53 without relying on legacy XFR.
Currently, Cloud Sync integrates with Amazon Route 53 and IBM NS1 Connect with plans to expand to more providers in the future. This approach ensures a foundation for broader multi-cloud DNS automation as new integrations become available.
IBM Cloud Sync extends the functionality of IBM NS1 Connect Managed DNS and leverages the NS1 Connect Free Edition. If query volumes exceed Free Edition thresholds, an IBM NS1 Connect Managed DNS license might be necessary to extend capacity.
Unlike traditional DNS replication or zone transfer tools, Cloud Sync is API-driven, cloud-neutral and continuously bidirectional. It provides real-time updates, automatic reconciliation of differences and full visibility into multicloud DNS health.
By removing reliance on manual scripts or one-way transfers, Cloud Sync offers:
- Consistent operations across all environments
- Rapid recovery from DNS changes or incidents
- Automated processes for simplified operations
At launch, IBM Cloud Sync supports synchronization between IBM NS1 Connect and Amazon Route 53. The roadmap includes Azure DNS, Google Cloud DNS and other enterprise DNS platforms, enabling unified synchronization across providers.
Yes. Cloud Sync is designed to interoperate with both cloud-native and legacy DNS systems. It can synchronize data from on-premises authoritative DNS servers or hybrid environments, ensuring consistency across traditional infrastructure and modern cloud deployments.
By synchronizing DNS configurations across multiple providers, Cloud Sync creates redundant and consistent DNS layers. This design means that if one provider experiences downtime, other synchronized DNS endpoints continue serving traffic seamlessly—ensuring always-on availability and improved disaster recovery.
Absolutely. Cloud Sync automates what used to be manual and error-prone synchronization tasks. It:
- Eliminates the need for custom scripts
- Reduces configuration errors and drift
- Frees up IT and network teams to focus on innovation instead of maintenance
Enterprise management associates (EMA) research shows that organizations automating DNS synchronization can achieve up to 30% fewer DNS errors and faster network recovery times.
Cloud Sync makes it easy to move or mirror configurations across multiple DNS providers. Because it’s API-driven and independent of proprietary transfer mechanisms, you can synchronize and replicate configurations across IBM NS1 Connect, AWS, Azure and GCP DNS environments—keeping your architecture flexible and portable.
Yes. Cloud Sync is built with enterprise-grade security, leveraging encrypted connections, API authentication and role-based access controls. All data exchanged between DNS systems is secured and adheres to IBM’s stringent cloud and data protection standards.
Setting up Cloud Sync is simple:
- Connect your existing DNS environments (cloud or on-premises) using secure credentials.
- Define synchronization pairs or groups.
- Cloud Sync automatically begins converting and synchronizing DNS records in both directions.
The setup process typically takes just a few minutes, with no custom scripts or zone transfer setup required.
Cloud Sync supports a wide range of record types—including A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV and NS records—as well as metadata such as traffic steering, health checks and routing policies. The goal is to ensure complete parity and synchronization across providers.
Yes. Cloud Sync’s continuous synchronization means that every participating DNS provider maintains an up-to-date copy of your configurations, creating live backups across multiple clouds and ensuring faster recovery and business continuity.
Cloud Sync is designed for organizations that need to:
- Maintain consistent DNS configurations across hybrid and multicloud environments
- Support multivendor or redundant DNS setups for higher availability
- Simplify migration, M&A and replatforming projects
- Ensure regulatory compliance and operational consistency across regions
Yes. IBM Cloud Sync is a globally available managed service, accessible through the IBM Cloud platform and selected partner marketplaces. Future updates are set to expand support across regions and providers.
To learn more about IBM Cloud Sync, explore:
Or get in touch with IBM_Cloud_Sync@wwpdl.vnet.ibm.com for demos, integration support or roadmap discussions.
You can get started with IBM Cloud Sync at just USD 250 or experience the product first hand through the 30-day free trial.
Yes. IBM offers a 30-day free trial for new users, allowing you to test synchronization capabilities, automation workflows and integrations across multiple DNS providers before committing to a paid plan.
Sign up for the free trial or public preview at IBM Cloud Sync preview.