Free DNS: Too good to be true?

If there's no such thing as a free lunch, how can there be a free service that handles a network management function as critical as DNS? That's what corporate IT executives are wondering as they consider two vendors touting free DNS services that are supposedly ready for the enterprise.

Both vendors -- OpenDNS and NeuStar -- are offering free recursive DNS service, which is the type of DNS service that lets employees surf the Web by typing domain names into their browsers and translating them into the corresponding IP addresses.

The free services don't include external DNS, which is how a Web site such as Amazon.com publishes the latest information about its DNS and IP address changes to its customers over the Internet.

The question for corporate IT executives is whether the free recursive DNS services are too good to be true.

"There really is no reason why you wouldn't go down this road unless you've already invested heavily in an external DNS infrastructure, which is what all the major e-commerce sites have done," says Robert Whiteley, senior analyst with Forrester Research. "The vast majority of the market is still in need of making sure employees have better access to the Web."

Whiteley says outsourcing DNS is a good idea for many midsize organizations because they typically don't have expertise on staff to manage this critical function.

"DNS is the new black art," Whiteley says. (Though DNS is by no means new, celebrating its 25th birthday in 2008). "DNS is something that not a lot of companies have a good grasp of. There are few people who can manage their DNS environment well, who can scale it, secure it and bring it back online in the case of a disaster."

That's why Whiteley says the free recursive DNS services are a good choice for many companies.

"It's perfectly legit," Whiteley says, adding that DNS is "a blind spot for lots of organizations. Lots of organizations spend countless dollars on forward proxies, Web proxies and URL scrubbers to essentially achieve a similar capability. Now they don't have to be mucking around in DNS so much. Now they can offload recursive DNS so they can concentrate on other evolving threats."

OpenDNS pioneers free DNS

OpenDNS is the pioneer in the area of free DNS services.

Launched 18 months ago, OpenDNS provides what it says is a faster, more reliable alternative to DNS services offered by ISPs. Individuals and companies sign up for the free OpenDNS service, and it handles their DNS queries for them.

OpenDNS makes money by selling advertising on its re-direction service. When users type a wrong address in their browsers, OpenDNS redirects them to the most likely site. The re-direction page has advertisements. OpenDNS also provides Web content filtering services and operates PhishTank.com, a community site that fights phishing.

Originally focused on consumers, OpenDNS says its customer base has grown to 3 million users, including 10,000 schools and thousands of small to-midsize businesses.

"ISPs are not that good at DNS," says David Ulevitch, president of OpenDNS. "That's why a lot of people are starting to unbundle DNS from their ISP. We can offer more features and more control over their network. DNS is the unsung hero of the Internet. When it goes away, it's a massive disaster. But when it works, nobody thinks about it."