Does Your Network Performance Need a Turbo Boost?
April 12th, 2010
Slow network performance can come in many forms and can be caused by several reasons. However, one of those reasons could be a certain setting within your network that can be easily remedied. Yet, many network administrators can overlook this simple setting, causing your network performance to be slower than it really needs to be.
Find out what this setting is and how you can fix it in less than 5 minutes.
Perception or Reality?
Network performance can be a very subjective topic. One person’s lightning fast speed can be someone else’s unbearable network lag. However, as actual network speeds depend on a variety of factors, like router configurations, types of switches in the environment, and types of network cards installed on your PCs, there can be one thing that helps reduce the time it takes to access websites and other web applications.
The service that affects the speed at which you can access sites on the web, or web-based applications, is called domain naming service, or DNS. To explain what DNS does, it’s actually pretty simple. DNS takes a uniform resource locator (also known as URL or Web Address) and converts it to a raw IP address.
An IP address is a series of numbers that make up a unique address on the network that is tied to a computer, router, or other network device. These devices are called hosts. Very similar to a telephone number, no two IP addresses on a network are the same. What does an IP address look like? It’s a series of numbers separated by dots (.), so a typical IP address looks like 208.69.36.231, or something similar.
Therefore, DNS allows you to type in a much easier to remember web address like http://www.google.com, and DNS will convert it to a unique IP address on the web, and your browser then pulls up the Google home page. That home page is housed on a host. In this case, the host is a web server.
One easy way to remember what DNS does, is that it provides host name to IP resolution. The resolution is the conversion of the host name to its numeric IP address.
Now that you know what DNS does for you, the way it does what does is actually very complex. That isn’t so easy to explain, and would be far off track for this article. Suffice it to say that a DNS server that is overwhelmed or overworked can provide slow host name to IP address resolution. So imagine if it takes even a couple of seconds to resolve your “query”, which is when you type in a web address from your browser, and the DNS server returns the hosts IP address, which takes you to your desired web page.
It All Adds Up
If you add up the couple of extra seconds it takes here and there, it adds up to quite a lag over time. So, next thing you know, your perceived slow network performance could actually be a reality.
Knowing that, why would anyone use an overworked DNS server to resolve host names to IP addresses in the first place? The answer is because most home users and IT administrators go with the default settings when it comes to configuring their DNS servers. The default setting for Internet DNS is usually the Internet service provider’s DNS servers. In many cases, the ISP’s DNS servers can be underpowered or are simply overrun with requests from the multitude of customers the ISP services.
An Easy Fix
If you want to speed up the host name to IP address resolution, it’s important to use external DNS servers that are geared for performance. The DNS service known as OpenDNS are DNS experts that have solved the lag problem that’s usually associated with overwhelmed external DNS servers. They’ve created a world-wide network of redundant servers that are optimized for high performance.
OpenDNS also provides other features, such as content filtering and phishing and botnet protection. You can read more about OpenDNS’s features here.
Home networks usually have settings made by the technicians that install the broadband connection. Those settings are made in the broadband modem, or in the home network router. Settings on a router are in fact changeable by the user, but any changes should be approached with caution.
Business networks actually have two types of DNS. One is the internal DNS which provides host name to IP address resolution for the internal network hosts, and the external DNS which does the same thing, except for Internet resources. The external DNS settings are what can be set to use OpenDNS for super-fast host name to IP address resolution.
Simply place OpenDNS’s servers in your appropriate fields for DNS in your servers, workstations, or routers. Their DNS address are:
208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222
Let’s Recap What We’ve Learned
What we learned in this article, it is that network lag can sometimes be improved by changing one setting on your network; the external DNS addresses for your network. Making this change can help you bypass slow and overwhelmed DNS servers that many ISPs use to serve their customers, which can slow your network performance to a crawl.
OpenDNS provides super-fast DNS services with additional security features built-in. They have a free option as well as options that help homes, schools, and businesses optimize their DNS services.
When it comes to making the right changes to your DNS settings, getting it right is essential in order to avoid total network disruption. If you’re not sure where to make this change, or how to go about it, drop me a note and I’ll recommend the best course of action for you.
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