**Selecting the Right External DNS Provider: 4 Key Considerations**

As the demand for improved performance and reliability in delivering digital content grows, many businesses are turning to managed DNS platforms. While these platforms offer similar basic features, there are significant differences in how they deliver performance, scale, and capabilities. To help you navigate these choices, here are four important questions to consider when selecting an external DNS provider.

**1. What’s your risk profile?**
While managed DNS providers offer a 100% uptime SLA, it’s crucial to assess the reliability and failover options. Different providers have varied approaches to redundancy and failover, which can significantly impact high availability. Consider the mechanics of failover and how customizable and manageable the options are.

**2. What do your developers need?**
In addition to focusing on improving end-user experience, organizations should also consider the requirements of their developers. With the rise of DevOps and serverless architectures, a robust API offering and connections to standard developer tools are essential for leveraging network infrastructure effectively.

**3. How will you manage traffic among multiple CDNs and/or clouds?**
As businesses start to utilize multiple clouds and CDNs, effective traffic steering becomes vital. It’s important to assess the ease of use and customization of traffic steering options to ensure optimal performance and resilience.

**4. How important is performance?**
For applications like streaming video and gaming, even small performance differences can have a significant impact. Evaluate the speed of network responses and the depth of traffic steering options, especially for high-performance applications using multiple clouds and CDNs.

When considering a managed DNS solution, it’s crucial to prioritize features and capabilities based on your specific needs and use cases.

*FAQ*

**Q: Why is managing traffic among multiple CDNs and/or clouds important?**
A: Using multiple clouds or CDNs allows businesses to distribute traffic to optimize performance and improve resilience. Effective traffic steering becomes critical in such scenarios.

**Q: How do developers benefit from a robust API offering in managed DNS solutions?**
A: Developers can leverage a well-documented and easy-to-use API to streamline their work, especially in environments driven by DevOps and serverless architectures.

**Q: Are there industry benchmarks for the speed of managed DNS services?**
A: While there are average industry benchmarks, specific use cases like streaming video and gaming may require even faster network responses.

*Source: IBM NS1*