DNS Based Load Balancers
Patrick W. Gilmore
patrick at ianai.net
Sun Jul 2 16:26:58 UTC 2006
On Jul 1, 2006, at 2:53 PM, Paul Vixie wrote:
>> I'm soliciting recommendations for DNS based load balancers.
>
> my recommendation is: "don't do it." for background, see:
>
> http://www.ops.ietf.org/lists/namedroppers/namedroppers.2002/
> msg02168.html
> http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/current/msg03572.html
> http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/current/msg00671.html
In the above posts, you claim it is a protocol violation. Would you
mind pointing out exactly which part of the protocol has been
violated? Specifically, I do not see where "offering back a
different rrset based on criteria like source ip address ... is a
protocol violation" [quote from Paul Vixie, second URL above]
violates the protocol. However, I do admit you know more about the
protocol than I do, so could you please educate us?
Also, I note that "Stupid DNS tricks" have been in use for at least a
decade now and seem to work just fine. A significant fraction of
Internet traffic is based on these "tricks", so it can't be
horrifically bad. Of course, the 'Net is resilient, so the fact
"doing X has not killed the Internet" does not prove X is good.
However,
Paul saying X is bad" does not prove X is bad either. So let's have
the logic behind your statement that these tricks are somehow bad for
the Internet.
One strong way to say things are bad is if everyone did it, it would
take down the Internet. I submit that the Internet would not die if
everyone did this. I also submit it is better than relying on BGP to
load balance. If you care to argue any of those points, I'll be
happy to explain my reasoning. Otherwise, I think the onus is on you
to support your claim.
--
TTFN,
patrick
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