[dns-wg] TLD delegation trade-offs

On 7 Jun 2005, at 16:03, Edward Lewis wrote:

> As you descend the tree, it's clearer than spreading name servers 
> among domains (even different tlds) has a benefit.

I'm reading that as "... clear that ..." rather than "... clearer than 
...", as I can't make
sense of it otherwise.

I used to think so too, but I'm now convinced that this is not clear at 
all.  I'm not saying
it's necessarily untrue (or even true): just that it's not clear.

> Because there are more moving parts as you descend the tree, there's 
> more chance something goes wrong, so you want to build in resiliency.

Spreading name servers among domains _may_ give resiliency; it 
_certainly_ adds complexity
and expands the repertoire of potential failure modes.  There are more 
places where things
can go wrong.  If there are (perhaps hidden) interdependencies between 
these places, the
overall impact of one particular thing going wrong may be far greater 
than expected.  It all
depends on having a strategy for placing your servers in well-managed 
parts both of the DNS
tree and of the network topology.

Of course, we all take care to have a strategy we can stand over,
and to review it regularly! 8-)


/Niall