The Domain Name System (DNS) gives a human interface to the very complicated Internet numbering and addressing system.  DNS allows you to type www.yahoo.com , rather than the Internet address 69.147.114.224, or even worse, one of the new Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) addresses that might look like 2001:db8:1f70::999:de8:7648:6e8.

Paul Mockapetris, founder of DNS and email, addressed the problem of providing DNS services in a virtual environment during a speech at Interop Las Vegas 2009.  While virtualizing DNS in a cloud might appear to be a daunting task, Mr. Mockapetris believes that "it won't take too long for cloud domain naming to become standardized, because after all everthing will still run under TCP/IP - the standard Internet protocol."

DNS becomes tricky in a cloud environment, as domain naming is bound to a specific user or company.  www.yahoo.com cannot be used by Google or Microsoft, as it is owned by Yahoo.  The same goes for the cryptic IP addresses - as they are provisioned to a specific user. 

When we consider the elastic or on-demand characteristics of commercial cloud providers, it is essential we are able to ensure our address space is kept within the owners control and management.  Today DNS is managed by a global system of DNS hosts, and high level "root" servers which see all IP address space and help direct Internet traffic to the correct network, host, or application.  The challenge is to bring the DNS management into the virtual cloud, and have address management and resolution behave as if it were built on physical servers.  And ensure the virtual DNS host is able to start and stop on demand, based on the processing requirements of individual applications or elastic processing.

Mockapetris forecast the complexities of domain naming systems within clouds will eventually "decouple themselves from the infrastructure, and move up hgiher into the applications space."  His company, Nominum, has an operating virtual DNS server which also includes additional security services to protect the integrity of on-demand or virtual networks.

As the DNS services move up the applications stack, this will allow companies to take better advantage of cloud provider transparencies and interoperability.  No company should be bound to a single cloud service provider, and should retain the ability to move their processing requirements from one provider to another based on business rules such as cost, cloud provider capacity, proximity to end users, and other factors.

A secure, virtual DNS service brings us a big step closer to an open cloud market.

John Savageau, Long Beach