What is managed DNS?

As the “phonebook of the internet,” DNS translates human-readable domain names and hostnames into computer-readable IP addresses. When a user enters a URL, their device queries a recursive DNS resolver, which will send iterative queries the authoritative DNS servers, starting at the root. The process continues until the recursive resolver finds the right answer from the authoritative DNS server that is associated with that domain.

Every query in the DNS is resolved using the same process. If a business runs its website using a self-managed DNS (that is, without a managed DNS solution), it is solely responsible for answering each one of the authoritative DNS queries that correspond to its domain name. It is certainly possible to self-manage an authoritative DNS, but managed DNS services simplify the process significantly.

Managed DNS solutions automate server management and DNS zone orchestration processes. With a managed system, the DNS provider handles all the configuration, maintenance and security protocols for an organization’s DNS servers, and the client uses provider infrastructure to manage domain names. In this case, when a user enters a business’s URL, they’re redirected from the company domain name server to the provider’s servers, which fetch all the resources and respond to the user.

In addition to managing the authoritative DNS and deploying recursive resolvers (responsible for caching and data retrieval), managed DNS can provide businesses with:

Managed DNS features can distribute traffic across secondary DNS servers (using zone transfers) if the primary server fails or encounters unplanned downtime or latency issues.

Managed DNS services provide real-time threat detection and response capabilities that protect servers against malware, phishing and other malicious traffic such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Managed DNS can distribute web traffic across different servers based on server performance and location.

With a managed DNS system, teams can receive real-time updates about DNS infrastructure health, so they can promptly identify and address system disruptions.

Anycast enables a group of servers to automatically respond to a single IP address, increasing uptime for DNS resolution and minimizing the impact of latency issues and server outages.

Choosing between self-managed and managed DNS services depends on several organizational factors, including size, complexity of DNS needs, budgetary constraints, in-house expertise, and required level of DNS data control. Naturally, the self-management approach has its own benefits.

Self-managed DNS gives IT teams complete control of DNS configuration, so they can fully customize DNS settings to their exact specifications, apps and services once domain registration is complete. Self-managed DNS can also provide cost savings, since managed DNS involves paying ongoing DNS management and maintenance fees to service providers. And because self-management means keeping more data in-house, it can reduce the risk of security and data breaches.

However, managing your own DNS can also come with significant risks. DNS traffic patterns can vary widely and are often unpredictable, making it extremely challenging to anticipate spikes in volume and manage load balancing protocols.

If a business chooses self-management, it also must manage its own response to DDoS attacks, which overwhelm targeted servers with a barrage of internet traffic. Without the DNS security extensions (DNSSEC), authentication protocols and DDoS protections a managed service provides, teams might be similarly overwhelmed with security and risk mitigation tasks.

Furthermore, with queries coming in from around the world, networks need to deliver responses within milliseconds to meet user experience expectations. Since internet queries can only travel so fast, delivering a high-performance site requires a global DNS (called “points of presence”) that deliver answers to DNS queries at scale, which can be a significant investment for some companies.

And for many organizations, the cost of building a global network of data centers with enough capacity, security and resilience to meet the demands of today’s internet—combined with the cost of training personnel—is prohibitively expensive.

Organizations must weigh the risk and benefits carefully and with consideration for their long-term strategy, the criticality of DNS to their online presence and any potential security risks. Some businesses might benefit from a hybrid approach that enables the business to manage critical domains with self-managed DNS while leveraging the benefits of managed DNS for less sensitive or secondary domains.

Managed DNS providers—such as Microsoft Azure DNS, Google Cloud DNS, Oracle Dyn, Cloudflare and IBM NS1—offer secure, high-availability, high-redundancy systems that deliver lightning-fast DNS lookup and optimized DNS functions. Since the early 2000s, DNS vendors have provided a standard set of services to organizations that prefer external hosting for their authoritative DNS.

Though DNS solutions have evolved significantly since their introduction, managed DNS providers continue to expand and advance DNS technologies to keep pace with the dynamic nature of internet traffic management.

For example, managed DNS now goes beyond basic load balancing to optimize performance, control costs and provide a streamlined app experience. Modern DNS platforms can even make query routing decisions based on specific use cases.

Some managed DNS platforms can also deploy infrastructure as code, which can provide a significant advantage in today’s API-based DevOps, edge computing and serverless IT architectures. Managed platforms can enable—rather than block—these systems by using simplified REST APIs with pre-configured architectures. And integration with tools such as Terraform can make integrating managed DNS features into existing systems even more seamless.