Intelligent Forwarding

BlueCat’s intelligent DNS simplifies DNS management across environments, reduces complexity, and avoids costly errors.

Diagram of intelligent DNS forwarding paths to Office 365 and external clients via multiple DNS record servers
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The article explains DNS Edge, a solution that architects DNS traffic paths to support remote workers, regional access controls, and Internet breakout for cloud services like Office365, Dropbox, and Salesforce. It describes how DNS Edge removes the need for duplicate name records across multiple authoritative DNS servers or complex forwarding by allowing up to three namespaces with conditional routing and priority-based failover. The result is simplified DNS management, reduced operational complexity, and fewer costly errors when directing commonly used services to the internet or between locations.

How does DNS Edge handle duplicate locations for services that exist in multiple places?

DNS Edge eliminates the need for name records to reside in multiple authoritative DNSes by allowing you to add up to three namespaces and set conditions that direct queries. If a query cannot retrieve an answer from one namespace, Edge sends the query to the next namespace in the configured priority order. This approach avoids maintaining duplicate records across DNS servers and reduces reliance on complex forwarding configurations.

What capabilities does DNS Edge provide for supporting remote workers and regional access controls?

DNS Edge enables architecting the path of DNS traffic to support remote workers and control applications and resources with regional access policies. By setting conditions on up to three namespaces, administrators can direct queries based on desired criteria—such as routing commonly used services directly to the internet or steering traffic regionally—thereby providing control over where services are resolved and how users access cloud infrastructure like Office365, Dropbox, or Salesforce.

How does the priority order between namespaces work when a DNS query fails to retrieve an answer?

You can configure up to three namespaces in DNS Edge and assign a priority order among them. Edge evaluates the configured conditions and queries the namespaces in that priority sequence; if one answer isn’t retrieved from the current namespace, Edge automatically sends the query to the next namespace in the priority order. This priority-based failover simplifies resolution paths and helps avoid costly errors by ensuring queries are retried across alternate namespaces.

Architecting the path of DNS traffic can take some interesting turns. Supporting remote workers, controlling apps and resources with things like regional access, or Internet breakout with organizations using cloud infrastructures like Office365, Dropbox or Salesforce.

To find these services, their location is found in DNS. And sometimes they’re forced to be in duplicate locations. Unlike your existing DNS, Edge eliminates the need for name records to reside in multiple authoritative DNSes or rely on complex forwarding. Edge can also direct commonly used services directly to the internet.

Simply add up to 3 namespaces and set conditions to direct queries. If one answer isn’t retrieved, Edge sends the query to the next namespace in the priority order. DNS Edge introduces unique control of your DNS resolution path to simplify management, reduce complexity and avoid costly errors.