Can I build a new DNS/BIND system parallel to our existing DNS production system?

Eivind Olsen eivind at aminor.no
Thu May 3 17:43:06 UTC 2012


Samad Agha wrote:

> 1- Is it possible to treat the entire environment as brand new, start
> building a couple of Linux name servers running the latest and greatest
> BIND S/W, start populating it in parallel with our current production
> system, and once the new system is completely up and running, turn off the
> two Sun-Fire-V210s.

Absolutely! Since you're currently running BIND 8, I don't expect you to
be using many advanced features, and hopefully you have a fairly standard
configuration.

> 2- If step#1 is possible, as a minimum (H/W, S/W) what do I need for a
> complete DNS/BIND system satisfying all the city's DNS needs
> (internal/external resolutions).

Depends, how long is a piece of string? I don't know what amount of
traffic you're currently seeing, or what your uptime requirements are.

> Any architectural/implementation/best practices advice would be highly
> appreciated.

Estimate what amount of traffic you're seeing during prime time. How many
queries per second?

I'd normally not recommend running BIND on slower multi-threaded
Sun/Oracle servers like the T-series, you'll normally be better off with
fewer threads but higher clock speeds from typical Intel/AMD systems.
(caveat: I haven't benchmarked BIND 9.9.x, which might have improved
this).

Regards
Eivind Olsen





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