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NeuStar – UltraDNS
The leading global managed DNS provider currently handling about 25% of the Internet’s authoritative DNS traffic including about 30 TLD’s. They provide various load balancing solutions, auto failover, and utilize their own proprietary resolver code. They have 15 nodes around the world across 5 continents, utilizing BGP in conjunction with IP Anycast. They endorse a highly secure network with an elimination in dropped DNS requests and give you full manageability through a web-based UI. They back up their service with a 100% SLA, customer support is 24x7x365 via phone or email, and they currently have no record of complete network outages. They also give you the option to resell their services.
Additional Services:
IP monitoring and Failover
Weighted/Percentage Load Balancing
Geo IP Load Balancing
URL and Email Forwarding
eMail Recovery
Primary and Secondary DNS
Vanity Name Servers
Reverse DNS
DNS Real-Time Directory – With certain recursive networks, update DNS zones immediately, regardless of TTL length.
Advanced Reporting
Phone App for DNS management
SiteProtect – cloud based, http/s DDOS mitigation with 6 globally anycasted scrubbing centers and 135mbps of scrubbing capacity
Pricing:
Term – 1 year minimum contract
Usage Based Model (monthly cost):
1 domain, 5 records, 5,000 queries – $15
10 domains, 50 records, 50,000 queries – $50
25 domains, 250 records, 100,000 queries – $100
Need to talk with sales for further pricing
Further Information:
DNS Shield – They’ve deployed authoritative DNS servers within the recursive DNS networks of ISP’s such as AOL, Yahoo, Earthlink, and Verio to ensure that millions of domains powered by their network are always available to their customers.
Management – supports all record types and allows adjusted TTL’s on each record providing real time propagation of 1-3 minutes. Usage on your traffic reports is also provided.
Geo IP – You can route traffic based on country, province, or state by state.
IP Monitor and Failover – Can test multiple protocols including http, https, ping, smtp, dns, tcp, ftp, etc…monitoring every 30 seconds.
Supports DNSSEC, and IPV6
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On May 6, 2009 aaron wrote:
I pay a premium but its worth it to me. UltraDNS has been in business for a long time and they know what they’re doing. I’m currently using them for monitoring and failover between datacenters, weighted load balancing, and Geo IP. They have servers all over the world which was a huge selling point and they utilize IP Anycast which is a must. They also have ddos mitigation and various other security benefits. They have pretty good support, no longer than 24 hours but usually quicker. I will admit they are expensive, but still worth it. Make sure to stay on top of your monthly traffic as well because you don’t want to pay overages.
On May 13, 2009 Arthur p wrote:
I worked for one of the largest online advertising networks and we used UltraDNS for DNS and Global Load balancing. Their services might be more expensive than others but their product offering is well worth it. all anycast network, large global infrastructure, and live support were the key for our management to choose them. If you are an enterprise and you want to outsource your DNS and just forget about it, I will go with UltraDNS but if you are SME type of company, then all their bells and whistles might not mean anything for you. Their service is not for everybody…
On May 14, 2009 Jeff Sprankle wrote:
UltraDNS has been down for twice in 3 years…. For the price that they charge… that is not acceptable.
On May 14, 2009 Rick wrote:
I love UltraDNS. I’ve been using them for years and never experienced any downtime. I think people like to speculate and spread rumors and have maybe had hiccups in service before, as you do with any provider. I’ve done a little research and haven’t found any history of UltraDNS having an outage, just a hiccup or two due to a ddos attack or something. Great company!
On May 16, 2009 James wrote:
For the last user that did research that could not find any history of downtime. I would suggest using a tool named Google… It is your #1 search engine in the world. You might want to use it. Sort of strange how an UltraDNS customer does not know how to use something like Google…..
On July 7, 2009 Nicholas wrote:
We used UltraDNS about 5 years ago and then made a business decision that we wanted to bring our DNS in house. Now after 5 years, we’ve gone back to UltraDNS because we realized that although they might not be the cheapest provider out there, their service is well worth it. Their overall infrasturcture, ISP relationships and post sale support is what makes them unique.
Also in several interactions that I’ve had with them, it seems that their sales people are well paid to focus on larger enterprise sales and most of them are not interested in smaller deals. If you are a VC funded start up or bootstrapping your company, then you might want to consider alternatives but if you truly care about eliminating DNS issues and improving infrastructure then UltraDNS is clearly the winner in my opinion.
On July 21, 2009 Hassan Salim wrote:
Funny that Mr. Jeff Sprankle that has rated UltraDNS poorly above, used to work for Dynamic Network Services; one of UltraDNS’s main competitors.
I think he “accidentally” forgot to include his disclosure.
On September 14, 2009 Kevin Kenny wrote:
During the time that I used UltraDNS, which was for a period of approximately three years between 2001 and 2004 (on behalf of a client), I never had any issues with them. Their support team were quick to answer questions and the DNS service itself bullet proof.
On March 8, 2010 Stacey Chandler wrote:
I’ve been using UltraDNS since 2005 and so far so good. I have no complaints. The main reason I chose them initially was for the fast dns updates, but now I’m using them for their GeoIP product. Everything is so easy to manage and I now have access to their advanced reporting. I can see just about anything I want with regards to my traffic. I know exactly where my users are coming from and which specific records are being hit the most.
They are also very flexible to my needs and are willing to communicate with me whenever I need them. My account manager is extremely fast in getting back to me. I would highly recommend UltraDNS to anyone out there.
On April 27, 2010 Simon wrote:
Funny that Mr. Jeff Sprankle that has rated UltraDNS poorly above, used to work for Dynamic Network Services; one of UltraDNS’s main competitors.
I think he “accidentally” forgot to include his disclosure.
On April 27, 2010 Don wrote:
We used UltraDNS about 5 years ago and then made a business decision that we wanted to bring our DNS in house. Now after 5 years, we’ve gone back to UltraDNS because we realized that although they might not be the cheapest provider out there, their service is well worth it. Their overall infrasturcture, ISP relationships and post sale support is what makes them unique.
Also in several interactions that I’ve had with them, it seems that their sales people are well paid to focus on larger enterprise sales and most of them are not interested in smaller deals. If you are a VC funded start up or bootstrapping your company, then you might want to consider alternatives but if you truly care about eliminating DNS issues and improving infrastructure then UltraDNS is clearly the winner in my opinion.
On April 27, 2010 Jonathan wrote:
I pay a premium but its worth it to me. UltraDNS has been in business for a long time and they know what they’re doing. I’m currently using them for monitoring and failover between datacenters, weighted load balancing, and Geo IP. They have servers all over the world which was a huge selling point and they utilize IP Anycast which is a must. They also have ddos mitigation and various other security benefits. They have pretty good support, no longer than 24 hours but usually quicker. I will admit they are expensive, but still worth it. Make sure to stay on top of your monthly traffic as well because you don’t want to pay overages.
On October 27, 2010 Mike wrote:
The service worked fine BUT after being a customer for many years this is what they responded when we no longer needed service (we hadn’t signed a new contract for 4 years!!!):
“We have reviewed your request to cancel and based on the terms of your contract it has been determined that your official cancel date is in five months. Your service will remain on and you will continue to be billed through then”
They then continued to bill us for 5 months and when we refused to pay the “bill” they sent it to a collections agency that started calling, emailing and threatening legal action. We spent more than 20K with them and always paid on time so WATCH OUT!!!
On October 30, 2010 Stacey Chandler wrote:
This is responding to Mike’s comment above…
I have been a customer for many years as well because they have the most bulletproof service in the industry, period. I have never had a serious issue, and any issue i have had, my account manager has responded immediately. You don’t get this type of service anywhere else in the DNS industry. It definitely helps that they are backed by a public company.
Mike – did you not read the contract when signing? What is there not to understand? I work at a company where we have 12 month contracts as well, and it clearly states the terms and conditions in there, very similar to UltraDNS. You signed up for 12 months Mike, what makes you think you can just back out 5 months early? Sorry, but I deal with these complaints more than I should have to. I still don’t get why people don’t read a contract.
On April 29, 2011 Al wrote:
I’m in the same boat as Mike. Unfortunately like him I did not read the paper work that it binds us for a 1 year contract. Anyone signing up should keep this in mind. Too bad they had to have a policy like that because in my opinion it drives away customers like me from considering using them in the future. They could have had us as a loyal customer for multiple services but they chose to tie us down for 1 year for a service we do not need. Lesson learned.
On November 29, 2011 Beth Sutton wrote:
It’s unfortunate – they seemed to have a good reputation, but the company has very little integrity. They upgraded us to their site backer plan, but then did not mention that our TTL time would need to decrease, thus increasing our overages and increasing our cost by $1000! Now, they are trying to “upgrade” us to another plan. I am very surprised that a company that supposedly has a reputation will actually try to do this.
On December 1, 2011 Beth Sutton wrote:
Please ignore the above review, which was written hastily by me earlier! It was a big misunderstanding that they have patiently worked with me to fix. I highly recommend them.