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by scurvy 3724 days ago
What happened to your DNS data? Did you switch to dynamic DNS based upon database data? You talk about how much a burden the manual DNS information was, but then you don't specify how you actually solved it using "automation." Is it all dynamic? Everything use SRV records that have TTL's or are added and removed?

Sorry for so many questions, but you made a big deal about how manual "DNS curation" was a bad thing, then glossed over the solution.
2 comments
doublerebel 3724 days ago
Manual DNS is a PITA, but there are a lot of providers that make it scriptable with an API. For example, I use LogicBoxes.

The greatest public DNS feature since sliced bread is Joyent's new CNS. Tag instances and they are available instantly through a CNAME. It's like the public equivalent of running Hashicorp's Consul. Freaking fantastic and makes me really glad I've stuck with the JPC for my infrastructure.

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brown9-2 3724 days ago
Look at the section "DNS Pushes".
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negz 3724 days ago
Post author here. A bunch of stuff was glossed over as the post was more focused on the stack's history and evolution than specific technical details.

Ideally we hope to provide some followup posts that go deeper into technical detail about key pieces of the stack (DNS, initramfs framework, job broker, GCP usage, etc).

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scurvy 3722 days ago
It's my hunch that they fixed "curating DNS by hand" with service discovery in another method. If you're just using DNS to name internal servers, big whoop. Unless you're using those DNS names for service discovery. Then you've got a big problem. But putting those things in a DB doesn't magically solve it.

It sounds like they went to another method for service discovery, then created DNS entries from a DB either dynamically by registering in a zone or just a regular trigger pulled on DB update. Either way, it sounds like they moved the scary stuff to another level/service in the stack.

Also, linters exist for DNS and can be automated even with manual edits. Jenkins + gerrit makes easy work for this.

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