Google proposes geo-smart Internet speedup
Specifically, the proposed extension, called Client IP information in DNS requests, would send along the first three quarters of a user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address with the DNS request. The last quarter would be lopped off to preserve some privacy, but the first part should be enough to geographically target the answer in some cases. As designed, it would for example return the address for Google’s Dutch server, not Google’s California server, to a person in the Netherlands who needs to reach it.
The process of finding the correct numeric address is called DNS resolution, and it can involve a request hopping several steps from server to server trying to find the right answer. The problem is that sometimes by the time the answer is retrieved, it comes from the far side of the planet and gives a geographically inappropriate answer. In general, the farther away a server is, the slower communications with it are.
Think of it as looking up an item’s price in Auckland and getting the answer in U.S. dollars instead of New Zealand dollars. Sure, you can do the math to get the local answer, but it’s an extra step.
This is where Google and Neustar UltraDNS come in. They proposed a DNS extension Wednesday to try to build some geographic smarts into the system.
Read more at news.cnet.com
