October 13, 2011, 4:42 PM — F5 is touting new DNS capabilities in its BIG-IP v11 software as a way for service providers to save money, stave off distributed denial-of-service attacks and scale to support rapidly expanding IP services.
DNS services running on F5 Global Traffic Manager can directly handle DNS requests that would otherwise burden DNS servers directly. By virtue of running on F5 BIG-IP or VIPRION hardware, the F5 DNS service handles more requests per second than servers alone, the company says, making it more resilient to the attacks.
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The service on the faster F5 gear helps to reduce the need for more DNS servers, thereby saving on service provider infrastructure costs, F5 says.
Under heavy load, requests to specific IP addresses can be advertised on multiple F5 machines to blunt the effects of DDoS attacks by ensuring a single system isn't swamped, the company says.
F5's DNS solution also helps protect users by blocking known malware sites and ensuring that DNS responses are delivered from valid or trusted sites.When deployed in service provider networks, the DNS service can enable providers to deploy new IP-based services more rapidly by making it simpler to scale their DNS infrastructure, F5 says.
With F5's Global Traffic Manager in play, requests can be distributed among data centers to meet performance policies. So if network conditions are causing delays at one site, requests can be diverted to another.
F5's DNS services are available now in BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager and BIG-IP v. 11.
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