Static DNS is a thing of the past. With NS1 Connect data feeds, your traffic routing reacts instantly to real-world conditions – keeping users connected to the fastest, healthiest endpoints without lifting a finger.
In this blog post will explain what data feeds are, why they are essential for modern infrastructure, and provide a clear, actionable guide on how to implement them.
Data feeds are a core feature in NS1 Connect that power intelligent, real-time DNS traffic routing decisions. Simply put, data feeds act as dynamic bridges between your monitoring systems (NS1’s own monitors or third-party services) and your DNS records.
For example, if a monitoring job detects a change to the status of an endpoint or as it collects new metrics, an update is pushed through the data feed, updating the connected answer metadata field in the DNS record. When a record is queried, the record's Filter Chain configuration determines which answer(s) to return to the requesting client.
Why do Data Feeds matter?
Data Feeds allow you to move beyond static DNS records and create a truly dynamic and resilient application delivery system. They automate the flow of live endpoint data into your traffic steering logic, enabling seamless, intelligent DNS behaviour. Data feeds enable:
NS1 Connect can use real-time data sent through data feeds to inform routing decisions. This allows for advanced, policy-driven steering that can send users to the fastest or most available endpoint.
Automate Failover: When a monitor or integration detects that an endpoint is down, it triggers an update to the DNS configuration via a connected data feed via a data feed. This data feed modifies the metadata associated with DNS answers, reflecting the endpoint's unavailability. NS1 Connect then uses this updated metadata to instantly reroute traffic away from the failed endpoint, ensuring seamless and automatic failover..
A Data feeds allow you to easily create automation that will update record or answer metadata as conditions change. Instead of manually updating, the data feed handles this process for you, ensuring your DNS is always accurate.
Scalable Integration: Whether you are using NS1 Connects own monitors, RUM data or third-party tools like Datadog, ThousandEyes, Pingdom, Catchpoint or Cloudwatch, data feeds allow all of them to feed into your DNS steering logic.
Getting started with NS1 Connect data feeds is a straightforward process that moves your infrastructure toward a data-driven strategy.
When you create a monitor in the NS1 Connect portal, a data source, a data feed, and a notification list are auto-generated. You can then connect this data feed to a specific DNS record’s answer metadata to begin steering traffic based on the monitor’s health checks. If you create monitors via the API, these objects must be created manually.
Integrating your own tooling
When configuring your own tooling to integrate with your infrastructure, you can configure the data source and associated data feed. This process makes it simple to feed data from your existing monitoring tools directly into NS1 . This allows you to change traffic steering for many domain names with one API call.
The your configured data sources and data feeds. This is where you’ll get started building your own.
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Configure an NS1 API data source.
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Create one or more data feeds under that data source, labelling them clearly.
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Build Filter Chains to determine routing login; drop unhealthy endpoints, prefer closer or under-load servers, etc.
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Link data feeds to DNS answers by associating the feed you just created to the metadata required to support the filters in your filter chain.
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Test and Monitor: induce changes to confirm the feed triggers correct DNS behaviour.
Data feeds are the key to unlocking true resilience, performance and automation in your DNS strategy. Log in to NS1 Connect today to start building your dynamic, data-driven DNS infrastructure.
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