Cloud DNS Routing Policies BreakDown

Author

Govardhana M K
January 10, 2025

In partnership with

TechOps Examples

Hey — It's Govardhana MK 👋

Along with a use case deep dive, we identify the remote job opportunities, top news, tools, and articles in the TechOps industry.

👋 Before we begin... a big thank you to today's sponsor RUNDOWN AI

Start learning AI in 2025

Everyone talks about AI, but no one has the time to learn it. So, we found the easiest way to learn AI in as little time as possible: The Rundown AI.

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.

IN TODAY'S EDITION

🧠 Use Case

  • Cloud DNS Routing Policies BreakDown

🚀 Top News

👀 Remote Jobs

📚️ Resources

📢 Reddit Threads

👋 We are bringing a hands-on webinar with live exploration and demonstration from the KEDA Project Maintainer - Zbyněk Roubalík himself.

🛠️ TOOL OF THE DAY

amazon ecr credential helper -  Automatically gets credentials for Amazon ECR on docker push/docker pull.

🧠 USE CASE

Cloud DNS Routing Policies BreakDown

Have you ever wondered why an OTT subscription registered in India won’t work in the USA or why a soccer game live in Europe isn’t available in Singapore?

The answer often lies in sophisticated DNS routing policies designed to deliver content efficiently, securely, and sometimes legally.

Let’s explore six key DNS routing policies that power global-scale applications and their real-world applications, benefits, and limitations.

1. Simple Routing

DNS maps a domain (e.g., app.techops.com) to a resource like an EC2 instance, load balancer, or Kubernetes service, resolving to a single IP.

  • It uses A/AAAA records for static IPs or CNAME records for dynamic resources like ALBs.

  • If the resource fails, traffic halts unless manually rerouted.

2. Weighted Routing

Multiple resources are assigned weights, and DNS resolves requests proportionally to these weights. Example: 70% to v1.techops.com, 30% to v2.techops.com

  • Each DNS entry gets a percentage weight.

  • If all resources have weight=0, traffic is evenly distributed

3. Failover Routing

Configures a primary and secondary resource for disaster recovery (DR). Traffic routes to the primary unless health checks detect a failure, in which case it redirects to the secondary.

  • Monitors HTTP(S), TCP, or even custom endpoint responses for health checks.

  • DNS TTL impacts failover speed; typical values range from 30–60 seconds.

4. Latency Based Routing

Routes users to the resource with the lowest network latency. Latency is dynamically calculated using regional edge locations and network topology.

  • DNS resolver queries latency maps updated by the DNS provider (e.g., Route 53 or Akamai).

  • Relies on GeoIP databases and BGP routing data.

5. Geolocation Routing

Routes users based on their IP location to pre-defined backend regions.

  • Uses GeoIP databases to map user IPs to locations.

  • Pre-configured locations specify which region serves traffic.

  • Supports default routing for unmatched locations.

6. Geoproximity Routing

Routes users to the nearest resource while adjusting traffic distribution with a bias factor.

  • Bias ranges from -99 to 99:

    • Positive bias sends more traffic to a resource.

    • Negative bias sends less traffic to a resource.

  • Geo-proximity calculations use lat/lon coordinates of resources and user IPs.

Pro Tip: When implementing these policies, always monitor real-world traffic patterns and tweak TTL, weights, and biases dynamically for optimal results.

Looking to promote your company, product, service, or event to 30,000+ TechOps Professionals? Let's work together.