r
April 5, 2001 — C I Host (www.cihost.com), a fast-growing leader in e-business solutions and
r
the Web hosting industry, has redesigned its network infrastructure to allow
r
for three, fully redundant domain name servers on different IP networks.
r
Placing domain name servers (DNS) on separate IP-blocks will help C I Host
r
combat Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and network attacks aimed at its
r
domain name servers.
r
r
“Having backup name servers on different networks helps us minimize threats
r
from a single Internet attack or outage,” said Christopher Faulkner,
r
president and chief executive officer of C I Host. “Now our third name
r
server does not share the same physical network as our primary and secondary
r
name servers, giving us greater flexibility in combating attacks. We strive
r
to ensure our clients have 100 per cent uptime and this new architecture
r
solidifies that.”
r
r
The domain name servers (DNS) are servers that translate lengthy IP
r
addresses such as 63.249.128.204 into domain names like www.cihost.com. DNS
r
architecture is the essential backbone to a strong, robust network. If
r
domain name servers are disabled or attacked, an Internet surfer’s browser
r
cannot locate the specific web address needed and thus the site appears to
r
be offline.
r
r
Stuart Bailey, founder and chief technology officer of InfoBlox Inc.
r
(www.infoblox.com), based in Evanston, Illinois, said C I Host’s move is
r
exactly what web hosting firms need to do to protect the health of the
r
internet and defend against hackers. InfloBlox makes high performance domain
r
name servers that provide high reliability and performance but are simple to
r
manage.
r
r
“Spreading your data around on different parts of your network is exactly
r
the approach to take to protect yourself,” Bailey said. “The kind of
r
architecture C I Host is creating takes away a single point of failure. If
r
one segment of the network is attacked or goes down, you protect your entire
r
network from a myriad of security issues. Without it, you are vulnerable to
r
attack. I commend them for their foresight in doing this.”
r
r
“There is no other major hosting company out there with this design,”
r
Faulkner said. “Many of them simply have two domain name servers, all
r
located on the same network segments, none have a third and none have them
r
hosted on different network segments.”
r
r
Every C I Host clients domain name was updated with Network Solutions to
r
allow for the third name server to be used.
