The domain name system (DNS) is one of the most successful distributed systems of all times. And one of the most antiquated. DNS is a small bit of operations of a cloud provider, yet a typical cause of an outage.
New top-level domains, IPv6 adoption, Internet of things may lead to a major revision of DNS, the system that can handle 100x the today’s load.
Another recurring theme is inadequate security of the current DNS implementation. By tempering with DNS records an attacker can reroute your e-mail or impersonate your bank. DNS is also the weakest spot for a “denial of service” attack. Your website may be redundant but how redundant is your DNS server?
Erlang on Xen looks like a key technology for DNS of the future: dynamic, instantaneous, scalable, distributed, and secure.