A group of providers of DNS and companies of content delivery network (CDN) designed a new extension of the DNS protocol to more effectively direct users to the closest endpoint CAN. Google, OpenDNS, BitGravity, EdgeCast and CDNetworks are among the companies participating in the initiative, which they call the world Internet acceleration.
The new DNS protocol extension, which is documented in a project of the IETF, specifies a way for part of the IP address of the user, including in the DNS request so that the name server can more accurately locate the topologically closest destination of the user. Ensure that traffic is directed to CDN termination points which are close to the user could potentially reduce latency and congestion for the powerful network services such as streaming video.
The new protocol extension has already been implemented by OpenDNS and Google's Public DNS. It works with the CDN services who have signed to participate in the effort. Google and OpenDNS hopes to make the extension of the Protocol an official IETF standard. Other potential members - such as the ISP of the Internet - are free to implement the specification of the project.
This is not really clear in practice what impact this will have on the performance of the network. It should be noted that GeoIP search technology is already used by some DNS servers which authorities for location-aware routing. The new protocol extension reportedly will address the limitations of previous approaches.
