Using Route 53 for global traffic management

Can you explain the difference between simple routing policy and geolocation routing policy in Route 53?

Simple routing policy allows you to route traffic to a single endpoint, without regard to the location of the requester. It’s suitable for cases where you have a single resource that serves all your traffic. Geolocation routing lets you route traffic based on the geographic location of your users. This helps to localize content and direct users to the nearest endpoint, which can improve performance and reduce latency.

How does Route 53 respond to queries when dealing with a weighted routing policy?

With weighted routing, Route 53 assigns a relative weight to each record set in a given DNS name. It then responds to queries not strictly round-robin but proportionally based on the weight assigned. This is useful for load balancing or testing new software versions in production by gradually shifting traffic.

What is DNS failover, and how does Route 53 implement it?

DNS failover is a method to route traffic to alternate endpoints if the primary endpoint is unhealthy. Route 53 can monitor the health of your endpoints with health checks and automatically route traffic to healthy endpoints in case of failure.

Describe a scenario where latency-based routing could be beneficial and how Route 53 facilitates it.

Latency-based routing is beneficial in a scenario where your application is hosted in multiple AWS regions and you want to route user requests to the region that provides the lowest latency. Route 53 facilitates this by maintaining a global view of internet latency and responding with the IP addresses of the region providing the lowest latency to the user.

Can Route 53 perform health checks on endpoints that are not hosted on AWS?

Yes, Route 53 can perform health checks on external endpoints not hosted on AWS. It can monitor the health of servers outside AWS and route traffic accordingly.

How does Route 53 Traffic Flow support global traffic management?

Route 53 Traffic Flow is a visual editor that simplifies the process of managing complex routing scenarios such as multi-CDN strategies or global failover. It allows you to create traffic policies that use a combination of routing types and health checks to route end-user requests according to business needs.

What is a traffic policy record in Route 53, and how does it differ from a normal resource record set?

A traffic policy record is a high-level configuration that encapsulates a combination of routing types and associated rules. This differs from a standard resource record set that traditionally includes just one routing type (e.g., simple, weighted, etc.). Traffic policy records allow more sophisticated routing setups, applying multiple routing rules within one DNS query response.

How do you secure your DNS responses using Route 53 to prevent DNS spoofing or cache poisoning?

Route 53 integrates with Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), which is designed to authenticate DNS response data. It adds a digital signature to each DNS response, allowing the client-side resolver to verify the origin and integrity of the data, thwarting spoofing and cache poisoning.

Explain the term “DNS propagation” and how it might impact changes made in Route 53 records.

DNS propagation refers to the time it takes for updates to DNS records to be updated and recognized across the internet. This can impact changes made to Route 53 records as adjustments made to DNS configurations may not be immediately visible to all users globally. The propagation time can vary due to TTL settings and the caching practices of various internet service providers.

What strategies can be used with Route 53 to handle a large volume of global traffic for an application?

Strategies for handling large traffic volumes include using a combination of Route 53 routing policies like geolocation or latency-based routing for performance optimization, weighted routing for load distribution, and failover routing for high availability. Additionally, integrating Route 53 with services like Amazon CloudFront for content delivery can help distribute traffic across multiple locations to scale effectively.

How can you redirect traffic from a deprecated domain to a new domain using Route 53?

You can redirect traffic by creating an Amazon S3 bucket configured as a website endpoint for the deprecated domain. Then set up an HTTP redirect (301) rule that points to the new domain. After that, you create an Alias record in Route 53 that maps the deprecated domain to the S3 website endpoint.

Can Route 53 handle tens of millions of queries per second? If so, how does it ensure high availability and scalability?

Yes, Route 53 is designed to handle tens of millions of queries per second and ensure high availability and scalability. It operates out of multiple AWS locations and uses shuffle sharding and anycast routing to distribute DNS query loads across numerous servers and locations, preventing any single point of failure and helping to mitigate DDoS attacks.