Using a low TTL to enable a fail-over cluster?

[Nate Campi]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 05:26:58PM +0000, phn at icke-reklam.ipsec.nu wrote:
> 
> Jakob Bak <Jakob at bak.com> wrote:
> 
> > 2) How much traffic does a secondary DNS get when the primary seem to be
> > running perfectly?
> >    (0% or ?%)
> 
> 2 servers would get 50% each, 3 servers 33% etc. There is no
> distinction between "primary" or "secondary" they are all
> "nameservers" and they are all consulted in "unpredictable order"

In reality, BIND and it's usage of RTT to find and use the fastest
responding nameserver makes this incorrect. Since most of the
nameservers out there are BIND, this has a visible effect on the
distribution of queries to most nameservers.

Implement my query graphing scripts for your nameservers (if you run
BIND 8), and you'll see which of your nameservers consistently gets the
most traffic. It may surprise you.
-- 
Nate

IMHO one should have to pass a test on DNS before publishing a CNAME. ;)
 - Greg White