Using IP Numbers To Speed Up Web Site Access

[Harry]

My understanding is that one of the biggest bottlenecks to Web site access speed other than bandwidth is the process of the Domaine Name Server having to look up the Domaine number for your Web Site address and then forwarding you to that address.

This bottleneck is especially apparent when you get fast downloads from your ISP but slow Web site access. So is it possible to get the Web site domaine number addresses of a Web site you visit so that for subsequent visits to the site, you can bypass the whole process of having to look up the domaine number and forwarding to that address. At least, couldn't you save the domaine web site numbers in your Favorites.

I have also heard that some DNS are significantly faster than others in looking up Domaine numbers and forwarding you to a Web site and that it is possible to get an IP address of another ISP's DNS servers and switch to someone else's domaine name servers permanently at no extra cost.

[Edited by Harry on 01-21-2001 at 05:07 AM]

[Statica]

Hi Harry:

In the long run using an IP address is a moot point. Here's a rough explanation why...
When your browser starts to load up wwww.blahblah.com it first checks the DNS servers of your ISP. The DNS servers on your ISP most probably will have the information of the IP address of blahblah.com's webserver in its tables, especially if you are dealing with an oft requested site. Once that is done, you no longer have ur packets routed through the DNS server, the packets are available to you directly [or through a caching or proxy server]. Essentially the rest of your download is irrespective because NSLookup is not invoked. So basically all you are looking at is the time it takes to resolve the IP address. Again the time is of no significance if it exists on tap at your ISP's DNS server, and if it isnt, its usually [if all is well with the net] a short request to its parent servers.
Using IP addresses in your favourites etc might seem faster, but there is a risk that you might actually be going over to a stale site. Most big firms etc, have multiple IPs too, when u get directed in from the DNS server, it verifies from existing records as to what the IP address of the particular server is. Even using pcmech's forums as a website, you should notice that its on 206.161.202.65, If you were to store the IP address into your favourites, suppose the owners of this forum move this over elsewhere, you would not be routed correctly, cos u are trying to come in on an old IP and not being routed through from http://www.pcmech.com
Suppose you were to assume that http://206.161.202.65 were the actual site for pcmech, u'd be wrong cos it seems to be a backup [judging by the speed and date of information] cos pcmech is on http://209.68.45.231 ] .. conversely http://209.68.45.231/forum/index.php is not the address of the forum]

If you were to use a robust OS like a NIX, you could maintain your own DNS server, which would then make everything fast... theorotically

There are other inherent issues with using IP addresses only because sometimes high capacity servers use load balancing measures which wouldnt give u as optimized a route as if u were to let the server redirect you.

getting IP addresses of websites is easy just type:
ping http://www.blahblah.com on an MS DOS prompt window and check out the IP that is being pinged. [to go thru what I'd said in the first paragraf, ping http://www.netscape.com at different times of the day or on different days..]

You cannot use the DNS server of another domain/service, unless explicitly allowed by that server, simply because the ISP will only cater to its own clients [recognizable by the IP addresses it assigns]. Err if you can access some other DNS server, try further .. the server admin is obviously hit the bottle pretty hard and u might get root access.

If u wanna check the bottleneck of ur connectivity, do a traceroute to give u ROUGH facts abt why a particular site is slow [rough: because it is just that loads of sites have turned off ICMP responses]

As an aside, using single number addresses is yet faster than using quad dotted IP addresses
check out: http://1077562544 vs http://64.58.76.176/


Long yeah but HTH

[Edited by Ex-Static-Cling on 01-22-2001 at 10:00 AM]

[Gintaras]

Some interesting reading can be here

[mhayes]

Excellent reading!

[underfunded]

Wow.. .that was one heck of an article... I always wondered how they did that with spamming. Thanks.