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  From: Leigh Hart <hart@dotat.com>
  To  : <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 06:53:41 +1030

Re: colocation swap

Hi Richard,

"Richard Russell" <richardrussell@mail.com> wrote:
> 
> Why would an ISP (particularly a small one) want a secondary
> mail/DNS server on the other side of the world?

Purely redundancy - from and Aussie ISP's perspective, it's a
really really good idea - the number of times Australia has 
lost total connectivity to the rest of the world can only be
counted on one hand in the history of the Internet in Oz, but
when it does happen, the DNS ramifications are huge.

DNS queries get "no such host/domain" instead of the right
answer, and that, to the client, is a final and fatal error.

Having the DNS query come back OK, but perhaps have a "server
down" error instead, would usually leave the client thinking
"Oh, I'll try later", instead of "Oh, they don't exist".

For a US ISP, it makes little sense at all.  They *are* the
Internet over there, so your suggestion of another ISP in 
another town, is a good idea (eg: Abovenet).

Lastly, there is absolutely NO (general) need for a permanently
connected host (ISP or otherwise) to have a secondary MX - mail
servers are smart enough to store and retry at the source these
days, why make someone elses day go bad when your mail server is
down?  :-)

Cheers

Leigh
-- 
| "By the time they had diminished | Leigh Hart, hart@dotat.com |
|  from 50 to 8, the other dwarves | CCNA: http://www.cisco.com |
|  began to suspect 'Hungry' ..."  | PO Box 3057 Newton SA 5074 |
|   -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side" | http://www.dotat.com/hart/ |

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