SIDN, the independent Dutch foundation responsible for the stable and secure operation of the .nl domain, has approached hosting provider LeaseWeb to integrate SIDN’s DNS anycast technology into LeaseWeb’s worldwide IP network. This would enable SIDN to step up the protection of the .nl domain and better ensure its uninterrupted availability.
The rise in the number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and especially the ferocity of these attacks, recently prompted SIDN to have its DNS anycast technology distributed ‘in the field’ by Internet-related parties willing to do, such as telecommunications and hosting providers. SIDN is the first registry in Europe to adopt this method in order to lend added protection to the .nl top-level domain (TLD).
LeaseWeb, a global hosting provider with more than 60,000 servers under management specializing in dedicated servers and cloud hosting, responded favorably to SIDN’s request and immediately made the necessary data center facilities available free of charge, making the company the first market participant where the DNS anycast technology was delivered including a fully-fledged .nl-name server. The technology is directly linked to LeaseWeb’s IP backbone.
Large hosting providers
“The usage of the .nl domain name is made more secure by having our DNS anycast technology hosted on a broader basis by Dutch Internet companies,” explains Marc Groeneweg, Project Manager IT at SIDN. “If SIDN’s delivery of .nl services were to be impacted by DDoS attacks, the .nl domain will simply remain available by resorting to this routing technology, which is available locally.”
LeaseWeb was one of the first market participants to be approached by SIDN because of the size of the hosting company and the scope of its worldwide IP network. “As a hosting provider, LeaseWeb is simply huge in the industry,” Groeneweg added. “The company is a global top-10 player, which makes it interesting for us to have our routing technology hosted by them.”
More participants
At this moment, five other major Internet companies have also responded favorably to SIDN’s request to implement the DNS anycast technology locally. As not all organizations want to have a node in their own network, SIDN also placed a node on the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), which is already being used by eight other Internet businesses.
The market participants approached by SIDN are required to comply with a number of qualification criteria and technical requirements. For one thing, like LeaseWeb, they need to have substantial volume because SIDN’s investment in deploying the routing technology locally needs to have a significant impact. In addition, SIDN expects these parties to run their routing operations in full compliance with ‘BCP 38 best practices’, to support IPv6 and, for example, to run an active policy against ‘open resolvers’ on their IP network, as these make the Internet all the more vulnerable to DDoS-attacks.
