Google Public DNS and Location-Sensitive DNS Responses
Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Recently the Google Public DNS team, in collaboration with Akamai, reached an important milestone:
Google Public DNS now propagates client location information to Akamai nameservers. This effort
significantly improves the accuracy of approximately 30% of the location-sensitive DNS responses
returned by Google Public DNS. In other words, client requests to Akamai hosted content can be
routed to closer servers with lower latency and greater data transfer throughput. Overall, Google
Public DNS resolvers serve 400 billion responses per day and more than 50% of them are
location-sensitive.
DNS is often used by Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) such as Akamai to achieve location-based
load balancing by constructing responses based on clients' IP addresses. However, CDNs usually see
the DNS resolvers' IP address instead of the actual clients' and are therefore forced to assume
that the resolvers are close to the clients. Unfortunately, the assumption is not always true.
Many resolvers, especially those open to the Internet at large, are not deployed at every single
local network.
To solve this issue, a group of DNS and content providers, including Google,
proposed an approach
to allow resolvers to forward the client's subnet to CDN nameservers in an extension field in the
DNS request. The subnet is a portion of the client's IP address, truncated to preserve privacy.
The approach is officially named
edns-client-subnet
or ECS.
This solution requires that both resolvers and CDNs adopt the new DNS extension. Google Public
DNS resolvers automatically probe to discover ECS-aware nameservers and have observed the
footprint of ECS support from CDNs expanding steadily over the past years. By now, more than 4000
nameservers from approximately 300 content providers support ECS. The Google-Akamai collaboration
marks a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to ensure DNS contributes to keeping the
Internet fast. We encourage more CDNs to join us by supporting the ECS option.
For more information about Google Public DNS, please visit
our website. For CDN operators, please also visit
"A Faster Internet" for more
technical details.
Posted by Yunhong Gu, Tech Lead, Google Public DNS
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle Public DNS now includes client location data when communicating with Akamai servers, improving the accuracy of location-sensitive responses for about 30% of users.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis collaboration enables Akamai to route user requests to nearby servers, resulting in faster content delivery and reduced latency.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eGoogle Public DNS and Akamai are using a method called edns-client-subnet (ECS) which allows sharing part of a user's IP address to determine location while maintaining privacy.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eGoogle encourages more content providers to adopt ECS to further enhance internet speed and efficiency.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Google Public DNS now forwards client location data to Akamai nameservers, improving the accuracy of location-sensitive DNS responses by roughly 30%. This collaboration utilizes the edns-client-subnet (ECS) DNS extension, routing client requests to closer Akamai servers for reduced latency. Google Public DNS handles 400 billion responses daily, over half being location-sensitive. The ECS extension allows CDNs to identify client subnets, enhancing location-based load balancing, with 4000 nameservers from 300 providers now supporting ECS.\n"],null,["Monday, December 15, 2014\n\n\nRecently the Google Public DNS team, in collaboration with Akamai, reached an important milestone:\nGoogle Public DNS now propagates client location information to Akamai nameservers. This effort\nsignificantly improves the accuracy of approximately 30% of the location-sensitive DNS responses\nreturned by Google Public DNS. In other words, client requests to Akamai hosted content can be\nrouted to closer servers with lower latency and greater data transfer throughput. Overall, Google\nPublic DNS resolvers serve 400 billion responses per day and more than 50% of them are\nlocation-sensitive.\n\n\nDNS is often used by Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) such as Akamai to achieve location-based\nload balancing by constructing responses based on clients' IP addresses. However, CDNs usually see\nthe DNS resolvers' IP address instead of the actual clients' and are therefore forced to assume\nthat the resolvers are close to the clients. Unfortunately, the assumption is not always true.\nMany resolvers, especially those open to the Internet at large, are not deployed at every single\nlocal network.\n\n\nTo solve this issue, a group of DNS and content providers, including Google,\n[proposed an approach](https://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/01/proposal-to-extend-dns-protocol.html)\nto allow resolvers to forward the client's subnet to CDN nameservers in an extension field in the\nDNS request. The subnet is a portion of the client's IP address, truncated to preserve privacy.\nThe approach is officially named\n[edns-client-subnet](https://www.afasterinternet.com/ietfdraft.htm)\nor ECS.\n\n\nThis solution requires that both resolvers and CDNs adopt the new DNS extension. Google Public\nDNS resolvers automatically probe to discover ECS-aware nameservers and have observed the\nfootprint of ECS support from CDNs expanding steadily over the past years. By now, more than 4000\nnameservers from approximately 300 content providers support ECS. The Google-Akamai collaboration\nmarks a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to ensure DNS contributes to keeping the\nInternet fast. We encourage more CDNs to join us by supporting the ECS option.\n\n\nFor more information about Google Public DNS, please visit\n[our website](/speed/public-dns). For CDN operators, please also visit\n\"[A Faster Internet](https://www.afasterinternet.com/)\" for more\ntechnical details.\n\nPosted by Yunhong Gu, Tech Lead, Google Public DNS"]]
