A fast, reliable website can significantly enhance user experience, drive customer retention and boost sales. By contrast, a slow or unreliable website can spell disaster for business, detracting from revenue, brand value and user trust. Website performance plays a critical role in determining the outcome of a business—nearly half of all customers (46%) will not return to a website if they experience poor loading time, according to Tech Report. Slow or failed website loading can lead to missed business opportunities as potential customers abandon their visits. Dunn & Bradstreet recently found that 59% of Fortune 500 companies endure over one hour of downtime each week, averaging a weekly cost ranging from $643,200 to $1,056,000.
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a fundamental internet protocol that translates human-friendly domain names into unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses — a process essential for directing users to the correct websites quickly and accurately. DNS helps maintain the seamless operation of the Internet, enabling efficient access to online resources. We only see the finished result of the page – a fully formed piece of content in a single place. However, beneath that are typically hundreds of DNS connections. During peak times such as Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Superbowl Sunday, or the upcoming Paris Olympics, DNS is the underrated superhero helping ensure all these connections happen at times of high demand.
There has been a significant gap, however, in the availability of reliable data on the performance of various DNS solutions. This is because measuring DNS performance is highly complex because real-world DNS connections are influenced by many variables, such as the local ISP connection, the distance between the user and server, or the resolver proximity. Moreover, since there is no universal standard for measuring DNS performance metrics, different methodologies across providers can lead to inconsistencies and make it difficult to compare results. Without access to standardized metrics, businesses often make investments in “good enough’ solutions, which reliably answer queries but not optimally.
Monitoring DNS performance is essential to maintaining a healthy, optimized online presence that prevents potential service disruptions or slowdowns for users. Collecting authoritative DNS performance data, as mentioned, however, is difficult. It requires continuous monitoring for real-time visibility and a distributed set of vantage points to ensure optimized user experiences across diverse locations. However, this can be resource-intensive and requires global, strategically positioned network infrastructure and advanced data processing capabilities.
IBM NS1 Connect and Catchpoint recently conducted a collaborative study to address this gap, aiming to provide more reliable and detailed DNS performance metrics to businesses and to compare the performance of authoritative DNS providers. The study measured DNS speeds for over 2,000 popular websites during peak traffic times in November and December (the peak holiday season), comparing the performance of authoritative DNS providers and self-hosted DNS architectures, ultimately uncovering substantial and surprising performance differences. The DNS performance study encompassed a wide range of data sources and geographic regions, leveraging Catchpoint’s global observability network to monitor DNS performance in real-time, providing extensive worldwide coverage and high granularity to determine key metrics such as the global average DNS response time, regional variations from different DNS providers, and variations by DNS provider types.
The key takeaways?
In numbers
• The average DNS response time across the websites we studied was 263ms.
• Response times in Europe and North America are significantly faster than in other regions, both hovering around 100ms.
• The slowest response times were in Oceania at around 350ms.
• Self-hosted DNS response time was 35% slower than the average global response time (an average difference of 141ms).
• The difference between self-hosted DNS and the leading DNS provider, IBM NS1 Connect, is self-hosted is 60% slower, a 244ms difference.
Don’t go it alone
Implement a managed DNS solution. A comparison of managed DNS options with self-hosted setups demonstrated distinct performance differences. Self-hosted DNS response time was in fact 35% slower than the average global response time across testing. Managed DNS solutions tended to provide more reliable and faster responses, enhancing overall user experience for businesses.
Consult a map
Be aware of regional variation. The study uncovered significant regional differences in DNS performance, with different continents showing varying results. North American and European countries performed best, due to factors such as higher infrastructure density, including a greater concentration of data centers and DNS servers, robust internet backbones, more connectivity between major cities, and closer proximity to DNS servers—factors an IT team should take into consideration when evaluating their individual performance.
Continuously improve
Create regular touchpoints for teams to review and optimize DNS infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Assess the difference between premium and self-hosted DNS services and between DNS providers. Performance can vary greatly across them all. Regularly measure and review DNS performance, identify bottlenecks and highlight areas where improvements are needed. This work will pay off in the long run.
Your users deserve a consistently positive experience, and with a robust DNS infrastructure in place, you can minimize downtime and enhance customer experience across the board. Monitoring DNS matters. Improvement of DNS performance directly contributes to better business performance by reducing potential slowdowns or service disruptions, and speeding up load times, leading to better user experiences. By leveraging the latest comprehensive data in the study, business can benchmark their DNS performance against reliable performance metrics, identify areas for improvement and ensure that website clicks convert to customers.
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