Why Reliable DNS is Important To Your Business

  • March 23, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Imagine, it’s 8:05am on a Monday morning. You log in to your computer and open up your email client, you read through a couple of emails that you received over the weekend and then you decide to reply to one of them, you hit send and…. NOTHING. The email won’t go out! You frantically pick up your phone and dial your IT department.

Across the country, a potential client who found your web URL on your Facebook page or some other type of advertisement wants to visit your site and see what you have to offer.  They try to type your web URL into their web browser, and…. NOTHING. So, they do a quick Google search and find one of your competitors.  Your competitor’s site is working fine, so they spend their money on that site.

Do these scenarios sound like something you don’t ever want to happen? Well, you better make sure that you have reliable DNS.

DNS is essential for many reasons. When a customer wants to visit your website, they type your Fully Qualified Domain Name, www.yourbusiness.com, into their web browser.  Without DNS, your customers would have to remember the specific IP address (i.e. XX.XX.XX.XX) that your website is listed at.  This could be very difficult, especially if your website has more than one IP address that points to that specific URL.  IP addresses can vary across the globe.  The DNS does all the work by redirecting the users to the correct web address, and making sure they are reaching the site that is hosted nearest to them, thereby ensuring that your customers are connected to your site the fastest way they can be and that traffic is balanced across all of the servers.

The location of DNS servers is important in ensuring 100% uptime. We deploy name servers across the globe at geographically unique datacenters using different tier 1 bandwidth providers to ensure a natural disaster or connectivity outage does not disrupt our robust DNS network.

DNS helps direct your emails to the proper servers, redirect customers to the proper domain and ensures that they reach your site the fastest and best way that they can at all times, even if mother nature decides to rear her ugly head.

How has having reliable DNS helped you in the past?

Common Support Questions and Answers

  • March 18, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Common Support Questions

Q: I have No-IP Mail Reflector and a sender is blocked by the RBL I have selected, What should I do?
A: Reflector is configurable and will allow a person or domain to be added to an exception list.

Q: My monitoring system rolls over, but does not affect my host.
A: The host has not been configured. Disable the check, modify the host with your offline option and reenable the monitoring check.

Q: I am using a redirect and my host resolves to a strange IP.
A: This is correct. The first resolution is to a redirect server owned by No-IP, the second request is made by this server combining your IP:port_number.

Q: I purchased No-IP registration for $24.95, but whois says it is not registered.
A: It appears you have purchased DNS without registration. Contact No-IP directly.

Q: When I ping my hostname I get a “connection timed out” error, what’s up with that?
A: A ping request is a valid test for connectivity to a network, but not DNS resolution. So as long as you see that the name resolves to a number, DNS resolution is occurring.

Q: Am I able to get a static IP address?
A: No-IP does not offer static IP addresses, we provide you with a name that will resolve to your current IP address and can be kept updated through the use of our free software.

Q: What’s wrong with the DUC? I keep getting notices that my host will expire.
A: If your IP address does not change within 30 days, then the host is considered abandoned and removed from the account. The DUC checks for a NEW IP address, if the IP hasn’t changed, then no update is submitted. When you upgrade to Plus or Enhanced Managed DNS these notifications are disabled.

Questions, Concerns or Comments? Leave them below!

Having issues with your No-IP service that our Support Center doesn’t cover? Open a Support Request.

No-IP Referral Program

  • March 17, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Did you know about the No-IP Referral Program?

By referring your friends to No-IP you can earn points towards free No-IP Plus subscriptions. For every 3 friends that sign up for No-IP Plus or No-IP Squared you will receive a No-IP Plus subscription for free! It’s Easy! Check out the Referral Page for more information. How many friends have you referred to No-IP?

No-IP New Hire!

  • March 17, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

No-IP is excited to welcome our new hire, online marketing manager, Natalie Goguen. Natalie comes to us from the travel/hospitality industry where she was an online marketing manager.

“I’m excited to be a part of the No-IP team. I am looking forward to expanding our marketing efforts and further building the No-IP brand,” stated Natalie.

Welcome Natalie!

The Anatomy of a DNS Zone File: SOA Record

  • March 15, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Part ONE What is a Start of Authority (SOA) Record and What Does it Do? The first resource record in any Domain Name System (DNS) zone file is the Start of Authority (SOA) resource record. The SOA resource record is an essential part of the DNS zone file, it indicates the basic properties of the

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WordPress.com Hit By Major DDoS Attack!

  • March 3, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

Early this morning, three of WordPress.com’s data centers were successfully taken down by a major DDoS attack. WordPress is describing it as the largest one in it’s history. The following is an excerpt from their blog

“WordPress.com is currently being targeted by a extremely large Distributed Denial of Service attack which is affecting connectivity in some cases. The size of the attack is multiple Gigabits per second and tens of millions of packets per second.
We are working to mitigate the attack, but because of the extreme size, it is proving rather difficult. At this time, everything should be back to normal as the attack has subsided, but we are actively working with our upstream providers on measures to prevent such attacks from affecting connectivity going forward. We will be making our VIP sites a priority in this endeavor, and as always, you can contact us via xxxxx@wordpress.com for the latest update. We will also update this post with more information as it becomes available.”

DDoS attacks happen. Is your business protected?  What can help your business survive a DDoS attack? Anycast. Anycast is a routing and networking method.  In this method, the same IP address is allocated to multiple name servers or hosts that all behave the same way, carry the same content and are capable of answering the same queries.  These name servers are located in various locations across the globe. Anycast automatically directs your customers to the name server that is located closest to them.

So, why is Anycast DNS so important?

Anycast makes DNS more reliable. Instead of traffic being sent to one name server, traffic is diverted to many different name servers.  If one server is congested, another server can take some of the load.

Anycast improves performance. We are a generation of instant gratification and one of my biggest pet peeves is waiting for a website to load. With Anycast, your customers can connect to a name server that is located closest to them, therefore reducing the amount of time it takes to receive the query. If the name server is located in California all queries from the west coast will be fast, but if the query is from New York, the queries will be slow, and queries from London will be even slower.  Anycast solves this problem and assures that all of your traffic is fast, no matter where the query is coming from.

Increase resilience to Internet Based Attacks. With multiple name servers available, attacks are mitigated and often concentrated to one server, rather than taking down the entire network.  Queries can be diverted to another name server in this instance, therefore causing no interruption of service.

Maintenance can be performed without any interruptions in service. During regular maintenance, DNS traffic is simply routed to the next available name server, therefore your customers are never without service.

Anycast DNS is great way to improve performance and resiliency of your network.

Since 2007, No-IP has been using IP anycast on some of our name server (NS) records. In the coming months all Managed and Backup DNS NS records will use anycast. Contact us today to learn more about what No-IP.com has to offer and how we can help implement Anycast DNS for your business!

Have Questions or Need Help? Check Out These No-IP Support Tips

  • March 1, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

At No-IP, we strive to be one of the best in our industry at providing A+ support to all of our customers. Please follow these No-IP support tips when you have any issues or concerns with our service. Also,have you seen our Guides and FAQs? They’re really cool, honest! A lot of common issues and questions can be answered from these guides.

Contact
The phone lines may be busy at times, so please leave us a message and the next representative will call you back as soon as possible. I cannot stress enough that our paid users SHOULD ALWAYS CALL technical support when possible, believe me when I say that your issue is important to us and we can respond fastest when we’re speaking with you directly.

But What If…
You don’t have a phone (really?) or you aren’t a paying customer? In this case, please submit a Support Ticket, it WILL take longer for us to respond to a ticket, but we will get an answer to you as quickly as we can. Tickets are responded to in the order in which they were received.

Please remember to include the following when submitting Support Tickets:

  • Subject Line: Provide either your email address or domain/host name.
  • Body: Be as descriptive as possible about the issue, what’s occurring, etc. Explain what you have already tried. (Because lets face it, I know there’s nothing more annoying than someone telling you to try what you have already done.) Also, please include what software is used in conjunction with your domain/hostname, if any.

What About E-mail?
Please do not submit support questions via email unless you have one of our Support Technicians direct email addresses. Any messages sent to other addresses will most likely be lost, forever.

We Want to Hear From You!
If you have any suggestions for guides, please let us know! Leave comments below or send then over to webmaster@no-ip.com

IPv6 Implementation Roll-out in the Works

  • January 10, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

In the past few decades, the online world has grown in an astounding pace.  The current Internet addressing system, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), which uses 32-bit (four-byte) addresses and supports approximately 4 billion unique IP addresses, is running out of space. As of January 4th there was less than 3% of address space available.   To continue providing support to an increasing number of connections, a new Internet addressing system, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), is being rolled out to networks worldwide.

As a leader in Managed DNS, No-IP is making great strides to ensure our v6 users are well-supported during this transition.  We have already implemented the IPv6 technology on one of our anycast name server clouds with plans to roll-out additional IPv6 support capabilities on all networks throughout 2011.   Our team is dedicated to being at the forefront of this industry-wide transition, and strive to support our users with 100% uptime throughout the use of IPv6 and into future versions of internet protocol.

Privacy Concerns? Six Tips for Conducting Safer Online Activity

  • January 4, 2011·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

You wouldn’t leave your bank or credit card statements out on the table, so why should your confidential online activity be any different?   Deleting your browser cookies is always a best practice, but even that will only get you so far.

Here are some quick and easy tips to help safeguard your privacy when surfing online:

  1. Use unique passwords for all of your online accounts.   This sounds simple enough, but given the increasing number of accounts we sign up for online, it can be tough advice to follow (especially if you’ve got over 50 passwords to remember).  Quick tip: keep a password protected Excel file of all your account passwords, so you really only have to remember 1 password to access all of your online accounts.
  2. Install a reputable browser addon to alert you of potential privacy threats.  It’s easy to miss the fine print when browsing online, and add-ons such as BetterPrivacy (via Firefox) can help alert you to any possible dangers you may have overlooked.
  3. Be sure to read through the privacy agreements on all websites, opting out where necessary.  Social media and other free online networking sites are notorious for collecting and distributing your personal information to third parties.  Before signing up for a new account, be sure to read through the privacy agreement and “opt-out” of any permissions or requests to use your information for marketing purposes.
  4. Beware of social gaming applications and other freeware services.  Facebook apps such as Farmville, Jungle Jewels, etc. have taken a hit recently due to user complaints regarding privacy.  Before you sign up to play, be sure to read the reviews and fine print.
  5. Be careful what information you choose to share with who.  This goes without saying, but it’s easy to forget how many “friends” we’ve added to our social networks that aren’t necessarily our friends.  Before you list your address out for a birthday party or tell people you’ll be out of town for awhile with an unattended house, double check who’s on the receiving end of that message and tailor it appropriately.
  6. Look for SSL certificates on websites (especially e-commerce sites).  When making a purchase online or sharing confidential information such as SSN #s, DOBs, etc. make sure the website has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.  This ensures the information you share with the site is secure and will not be compromised.

With these few tips put to practice, you’ll be well on your way to a safer, more spam-free and secure online experience.

2000-2010: How Web Technology Changed the Way We Work

  • December 29, 2010·
  • by Natalie Goguen·

2000-2010 brought about some rapid advances in enterprise technology.  From cloud computing to SaaS, small and large businesses alike became equipped with cheaper, more efficient programs to conduct their operations.  Improvements in web technology and the increased availability of information leveled the playing field for start-ups, entrepreneurs and virtual companies to compete with the “big guys” as an era of “collaboration” and “wikis” took the world by storm.   Employees and business owners chose to work smarter rather than harder as competition in the service industry skyrocketed.  And as Thomas Friedman predicted so eloquently, the world got flatter, and in this new world we developed new markets that spanned both coast and country lines.  The ability of businesses to evolve on pace with technology quickly determined their success or demise, as departments that once had no tangent with IT found themselves reliant on it for daily operations.

It’s been an exciting decade of advancement and accomplishment in the ever-expanding field of web technology– a field that lies at the core of many businesses operating in many industries.  No-IP  is proud to be equipped with the latest systems and infrastructure to power these companies, and we look forward to what the next 10 years has in store for us.

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