Domain Name Redundancy Plan

There are 13 or so root name servers. If all these servers fail, we have a bigger problem. The next set of servers resolve the "com" part of the address. Both "com" and "net" use gtld-servers.net which are run by Verisign and Network Solutions. They run a bank of another 13 or so servers which all appear to have IP addresses starting with 192. I would suspect that they could easily have a shared configuration which could render them inoperable in various capacities, including Verisign's Sitefinder.

Additional redundancy can be found by using the "org" or "us" top-level domains which are not run by Verisign. By using a separate set of managed servers, misconfiguration errors can be mitigated. The "org" top-level domain is run by a different set of servers than the "us" top-level domain.

For most, the "edu" top-level domain is not an option. But for the curious, it appears to be run by Verisign as well, but using a different set of servers.

After considering the managers of the top-level domain servers, the next focus would be on registrars like All Domains, which appears to be partnered with Mark Monitor. The other registrar which is well-adopted by companies and websites is Tucows Inc. These two are all second tier compared to Verisign and Network Solutions.

My current strategy is to use a "com" and an "org" address. I could further mitigate errors by staggering registrations a few months apart. Coupled a pair of geographically distrubuted virtual private server hosting providers, I may have better disaster recovery than some Fortune 500 companies. Uptime should be easy; particularly if I don't offer any services.

I have a couple "us" addresses which I am retiring. I've been fiddling with the idea that names and identifiers should be assigned instead of chosen.

I found Ben Edelman's analysis of the domain name registrar industry quite useful. He has listed the breakdown of whichcompanies and sites use which registrars.