Some Dyn services, including Domain Name System (DNS), will be retired by Oracle starting May 31, 2023. With the impending End of Life (EOL) of these services, many customers are left scratching their heads, saying, “now what?” Furthermore, to rub salt in the wound of Dyn users, they faced an outage in mid-February lasting several days and causing them to scramble to find a more stable replacement for their managed DNS solution. Let’s examine the current Dyn outage and shed light on the importance of instant propagation.

When did the Dyn outage start?

On Feb. 13, 2023, at 17:37 UTC, Dyn Managed DNS engineers began investigating issues impacting the web portal and DNS records updates. During that time, Dyn acknowledged intermittent failures (500 errors) accessing the Managed DNS UI and API for records updates.

According to the Dyn status page, issues included the following:

• Dyn customers couldn’t access their Managed DNS via API or UI.
• There is evidence that changes made shortly before or since the impact start time (17:37 UTC) were experiencing propagation delays.
• The API was experiencing significant latency/timeouts related to limitations imposed in correction efforts.
• The Managed DNS portal was in maintenance mode (unavailable). DNS resolution was not impacted, and changes propagating with intermittent high latency (> 1 min).

Engineers continued to monitor the API’s stability and change propagation worked for several days to restore function to the Managed DNS portal and their services.

What is DNS propagation?

DNS propagation refers to the time it takes for changes to a domain name’s DNS records to be available across all authoritative servers.

DNS propagation is a key component of uptime

The importance of instant DNS propagation lies in its ability to minimize the downtime of a website or application, as well as reduce the risk of data loss or issues similar to the Dyn outage by pointing to responsive servers. If a domain name’s DNS records are not updated immediately, users trying to access the website or application will experience issues or may be unable to access the website.

With instant DigiCert DNS propagation, the updated DNS records take effect immediately at the edge, ensuring that all users are directed to the correct servers and that there is a seamless propagation process. If you are experiencing issues with your Dyn/Oracle DNS services, the DigiCert DNS propagation will be a vital component for your organization because it will eliminate downtime and reduce the risk of any issues occurring.

Benefits of API instant propagation

• Faster DNS updates that eliminate downtime
  DNS API instant propagation ensures that updates to DNS records are reflected immediately, leading to faster updates and eliminating downtime for domains.
• Enhanced user experience
  With DNS API instant propagation, users can access a website or application without any delay or disruption, enhancing the user experience.
• Increased reliability
  Instant propagation eliminates waiting for DNS records to propagate across the DigiCert DNS network, reducing the risk of DNS resolution failures due to delayed updates.
• Unlimited scalability
  Instant propagation enables organizations to scale up or down their services quickly without any lag time or delays in DNS resolution, allowing them to respond quickly to evolving business needs.
• Cost-effective
  DigiCert DNS API instant propagation reduces the cost associated with maintaining DNS servers and infrastructure, leading to more cost-effective DNS management. Unfortunately, in the Dyn/Oracle example, this outage is costing their customers hundreds of millions of dollars in loss of sales and loss of brand loyalty.
• DNS historical outage
  DigiCert DNS is proud to have an unmatched 12 years of 100% uptime. In contrast, Dyn has had multiple outages in the last decade, making this a critical differentiator when choosing a DNS provider. Check out our Dyn comparison page, which highlights some of our essential services and benefits that Oracle/Dyn does not support.
• DigiCert DNS vs Dyn/Oracle Speeds
  Dyn/Oracle services do not hold a candle to DigiCert DNS global speed performance. According to PerfOps data, you can see the difference in the image below. DigiCert DNS is more than twice as fast as Dyn DNS, with an average query resolution of 17.95ms compared to Dyn/Oracle’s 46.86ms.
   

DigiCert DNS propagation is instant

Our proprietary Peregrine Instant DNS Update technology offers immediate changes once your domain has been added to our nameservers. When updating a record, it will take the length of the time to live (TTL) in seconds to expire before your latest changes go into effect on a caching resolver. You can set the TTL to any value before or after making changes to your records. Reasonable values for a Dynamic IP are between 5 and 120 seconds.

Migration options from Dyn to DigiCert DNS

We know this is a stressful time for Dyn/Oracle customers. At DigiCert DNS, we have a proven 12-year track record of 100% uptime and have implemented hundreds of Dyn DNS migrations leading up to the EOL of their services. We are here to help you to get your sites back online, and we are pleased to extend complimentary migration services to current Dyn users who choose to transition their managed DNS services.

Our customer success team is ready to assist your IT team in navigating this process with a seamless transition. Contact us and learn more with a strategy call with our experts to see how we can enhance your organizations DNS and monitoring solutions.