The Search Engine Professionals at Rank for $ales.com --- In business since 1997.
Back to our Homepage SEO Tips that will make a big difference in your rankings and our most popular ** How To ** section The most common myths about SEO -- Read what the experts have to say about today's most common SEO myths and misconceptions Frequently Asked Questions to Search Engine Optimization and Positioning Search Engine Optimization Industry News -- Stay in tune with the most recent developments in search engine technology and the SEO industry Contact Rank for $ales today and get your site's rankings high in the engines-- Right where they should be!

  SEARCH FOR:   CITY or STATE:

Search this site


Akamai disruption affected Google, Yahoo and Microsoft

June 15, 2004

A DNS service outage at Akamai Technologies prevented access to some of the Internet's major Web sites Tuesday, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, according to The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center.

The DNS (domain name system) servers that content hosting company Akamai uses to host DNS services for some customers stopped responding at around 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., leaving Web surfers who were trying to reach those sites high and dry, said Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer at the Internet Storm Center.

Andy Ellis, Akamai's chief security architect, declined to comment on Tuesday, but did not deny that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, company was experiencing problems.

An Akamai spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Akamai offers an "Enhanced DNS" service, in which customers use Akamai's network of DNS servers to resolve Internet requests for their domain, such as Google.com. The distributed, worldwide network of servers is marketed by Akamai as a more stable and robust solution than internally managed DNS servers, which are susceptible to failure or attack.

However, users began reporting problems Tuesday reaching popular sites, like Google.com and Yahoo.com, that use the service. The Internet Storm Center received reports of troubles from across the world, including Asia and South America, Ullrich said.

An investigation into the problem revealed that Akamai's DNS servers were not responding to requests. The problem appeared to affect the company's worldwide network of DNS servers, suggesting that the problem may have been with caused by a problem within Akamai rather than an external attack on its DNS servers, Ullrich said.

"It could be anything -- somebody tripping on an power cord. I think an attack is unlikely, unless somebody was able to hit a central control node," he said.

While some Internet users were prevented from reaching the affected sites during the outage, others were unaffected, due to the distributed nature of the DNS infrastructure.

DNS, which translates reader-friendly names like "Yahoo.com" into numeric Internet Protocol addresses used on the Internet, is a tree-like structure of distributed servers, each with its own frequently-updated list of server and domain addresses.

Problems in one part of the DNS system often do not affect other parts of the infrastructure for hours, or more, Ullrich said.

The hiccup in Akamai's service is the second in less than a month. In May, a software glitch slowed Akamai servers used to host customer Web pages and other information, making it difficult to reach some of its customers' Web sites for around 90 minutes, Akamai acknowledged.

Akamai blamed that service interruption on a bug in content management software that Akamai customers use to update content on Akamai servers, said Jeff Young, an Akamai spokesman.

Yahoo.com, Google.com and Microsoft.com were all reachable again within two hours of the reported interruption.

Source: IDG News Services


Back to the top of the page.         
Fill out your e-mail address
to receive our free newsletter!

Read Serge Thibodeau's daily blogs on search engines at Serge Thibodeau Live. We strongly suggest you bookmark our web site by clicking here.

Tired of receiving unwanted spam in your in box? Then get SpamArrest™ and put a stop to all that nonsense. Click here to get all the details.
Tired of receiving unwanted spam in your in box? Get SpamArrest™ and put a stop to all that SPAM. Click here and get rid of SPAM forever!

Get your business or company listed in the Global Business Listing directory and increase your business. It takes less then 24 hours to get a premium listing in the most powerful business search engine there is. Click here to find out all about it.

Rank for $ales strongly recommends the use of WordTracker to effectively identify all your right industry keywords. Accurate identification of the right keywords and key phrases used in your industry is the first basic step in any serious search engine optimization program. Click here to start your keyword and key phrase research.

Pay Rank for $ales securely with your Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express credit card through the secure PayPal network. (Note: PayPal is an eBay company, and maintains a net free capital of US $ 50 Million).
VisaMasterCardDiscoverAmerican Express

You can link to the Rank for Sales web site as much as you like. Read our section on how your company can participate in our reciprocal link exchange program and increase your rankings in all the major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo and all the others.

Powered by Sun Hosting                  Sponsored by Avantex          Traffic stats by Site Clicks™

Site design by Mtl. Web D.         Sponsored by Press Broadcast         Sponsored by Blog Hosting.ca


Call Rank for Sales toll free from anywhere in the US or Canada:   1-800-631-3221
email:   info@rankforsales.com

| Home | SEO Tips | SEO Myths | FAQ | SEO News | Articles | Sitemap | Contact |


Copyright © Rank for Sales 2003    Terms of use    Privacy agreement    Legal disclaimer

       Ce site est disponible en Français