benmcfadden.com

Please See the Updates at the bottom of the post

Background:
A hosting company I use quite regularly is great, except when I add a domain pointer as they call it (also often called an addon domain) it takes 90 minutes before their DNS servers get the update. The ROOT DNS servers for the whole Internet take only a couple minutes. I want to know why this hosting company is so far behind in things.

My message to them:

I have approximately 15 domains hosted on [your company] under various accounts. I continue to recommend [your company] for hosting to my clients as your uptime is great, and the service is worth every penny and then some!

I also have at least 40 – 50 domains hosted elsewhere ([competing company], [competing company], [competing company], and a few small “mom and pop” hosting companies).

I have one problem that all of these other companies have managed to solve, and I would like to know why [your company] still has this problem. Whenever I add a new domain pointer (some hosting companies call this an addon domain) it takes approximately 90 minutes for the [your company] name servers to get the entry added into their settings files. On my other hosting accounts, this process only takes 5 minutes or less.

It’s really not a deal killer, but it would be nice if when adding a new domain to an existing account, it only took a few minutes for the [your company] DNS to catch up, afterall, the root DNS servers are updated in a matter of minutes. Why can’t [your company] do the same?

Thanks for your explanation,
Ben

Their response:

Hi Ben,

When a new domain is created, it takes about 60-90 minutes for the DNS changes to fully propagate to our nameservers. This is why you are seeing the delay in resolution. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause

Now, perhaps I am wrong, but I believe that they just admitted to me that they are aware they are pathetically slow, but that they are not going to tell me why, or put any effort into fixing it.

Honestly, I have no idea what’s involved in making this work quicker. But I do know that every other hosting company I have used does not have this problem, and thus it is solvable. Heck, if the root DNS servers can refresh more often, why can’t these?

On top of that, why can’t customer service actually answer my question, instead of repeating half of what I said and adding an apology. I wasn’t asking for an apology, I was asking for a solution!

</rant>

UPDATE 2009-07-30 11:25 am

I filled out their survey about my ticket, and rated it honestly. Which was poorly. I believe the question I rated worst was “Did your question/problem get answered/solved?” They responded to my survey with this:

Hi Ben,

I see that you rated this ticket a 2, so I simply wanted to follow-up with you to ensure that your issue was resolved as well as to get feedback from you on how we could have better handled your ticket. Any feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and have a great day!

Best regards,

I simply stated the truth. My question was never answered.

My question wasn’t answered in the response. I asked WHY it was that
way and if [your company] was ever going to get up to par with their DNS
system. The response simply restated my description of the problem
with your DNS having huge delays. I already know that there is a delay
in your DNS. That was very clear in my question, and subject.  See my
blog post for further ranting about this ticket:
http://benmcfadden.com/blog/?p=31

Update 2 2009-07-31 1:12am

Earlier today I received a useful response from this company. Not only did it answer my question, it was from a high-up in the company. I must admit I am surprised that filling out a survey actually got me any attention. This is the response I received:

Ben,

You’re absolutely correct; our representative did not address you questions at all. I will be speaking with him to go over how he should have handled your questions.

To be honest though, not many of our support personnel would have been able to answer that. But, I can.. so I will. The “problem” is two-fold:

1) It takes up to 45 minutes for cron to generate the named configuration — it depends on when the changes are made in relation to the last cron execution. Once the cron is complete, notification is sent to our slave DNS servers at which point they request the update. Our cron used to be set to faster intervals in updates, but we saw far too many errors in the process which obviously isn’t desirable.

2) The current DNS system we use is antiquated and set to be replaced. Our CTO and CSO are working on its replacement, but a couple other projects are taking precedence. We hope to have the new DNS system out by the end of the year, but don’t hold me to that!

If you have any further questions or comments, by all means do not hesitate to let me know.

Best regards,

[John Smith]
Chief Operating Officer

I’m impressed. He was honest, and actually provided me with an acceptable answer. And he’s the C.O.O. of the company. Or at least claims so in his email signature. In any case, I’ll at least pretend he is.

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