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UltraDNS™ Corporation, the world's leading provider of Managed DNS services, today announced that its Directional DNS Service successfully addressed customer issues created by the peering dispute between Internet Service Providers (ISP) Cogent (AMEX: COI) and Level 3 (Nasdaq: LVLT). By utilizing the UltraDNS Directory Service Platform, companies who maintain data centers with either Cogent or Level 3 were able to avoid the "black holes" in cyberspace created by this dispute and route Level 3 or Cogent subscribers to alternative websites or mail servers seamlessly.

As reported by multiple news outlets last week, Level 3 Communications shut down the equipment supporting a private peering relationship with Cogent Communications on Wednesday, October 5th. As a consequence, some customers on each company's network could not access the other company's network for mail or website resolution, until peering was restored on Friday, October 7th. According to media reports, this restoration is temporary and peering of traffic between the two ISPs may again cease on November 9th unless the two companies resolve a dispute regarding their current no-cost peering arrangement.

"By outsourcing Bluefly.com's DNS to UltraDNS and utilizing their unique capabilities, we are able to automatically identify and route only our Cogent customers to a mirrored data center on another network while allowing all other customers to continue to be served by our main Level 3 systems," said Matt Raines, Director of Technology at Bluefly, a leading online clothing retailer. "This functionality is critical and if the negotiations between Level 3 and Cogent breakdown again, we will implement this solution seamlessly. This advanced functionality further validates our decision to move to UltraDNS for their industry leading Managed DNS Services."

Using an extension of the UltraDNS Directional DNS Service, enterprise customers of either ISP, like Bluefly, can route traffic destined for the other to an alternative end point. For example, traffic from a Level 3 customer destined for a web server hosted by Cogent can be routed to a web server outside of the Cogent network. Leveraging the capabilities of UltraDNS' Directory Services Platform, the Directional DNS Service identifies traffic by the originating Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) and responds with a specific DNS answer based on the UltraDNS customer configurations. ASNs are globally unique numbers that identify networks on the Internet and the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that are associated with those networks. Routing policies (including peering) are based on these ASNs.

"As the provider of technology that powers over 20% of the world's domains and thousands of enterprise networks, UltraDNS is committed to maintaining Internet stability and we are pleased that our solutions allowed organizations to maintain operations during this unfortunate dispute," said Jeffrey Samuels, General Manager and Vice President, Marketing, of UltraDNS. "UltraDNS managed services have the inherent flexibility to provide an unparalleled level of control and customization to our customers in shaping their traffic and optimizing their network operations."

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Related topics: DNS, Internet Protocol