MyXDNS: A Request Routing DNS Server With Decoupled Server Selection

This paper presents the architecture and the preliminary evaluation of a request routing DNS server that decouples server selection from the rest of DNS functionality. Our DNS server, which we refer to as MyXDNS, exposes well-defined APIs for uploading an externally computed server selection policy and for interacting with an external network proximity service. With MyXDNS, researchers can explore their own network proximity metrics and request routing algorithms without having to worry about DNS internals. Furthermore, MyXDNS is based on open-source MyDNS and is available to public. Stress-testing of MyXDNS indicated that it achieves its flexibility at an acceptable cost: a single MyXDNS running on a low-level server can process 3000 req/sec with sub-millisecond response even in the presence of continuous updates to server selection policy.