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Planning the 3-DNS Configuration
3-DNS
®
Administrator Guide 2 - 1
Managing traffic on a global network
The 3-DNS Controller is a sophisticated wide-area traffic manager. With a
3-DNS Controller, you can load balance web site traffic and distributed
applications across a global network. You can also monitor the health of
your network. This section provides a brief overview of how the 3-DNS
Controller works within a global network, and how it interacts with any
BIG-IP system, EDGE-FX system, or host in the network. The section also
illustrates how the 3-DNS Controller works with the big3d agents that run
in various locations in the network, and with the local DNS servers that
make DNS requests on behalf of clients connecting to the Internet.
The following sample configuration shows the 3-DNS Controllers that load
balance connections for a sample Internet domain, siterequest.com.
Understanding a basic 3-DNS configuration
The 3-DNS Controllers in your network sit in specific data centers, and
work in conjunction with the BIG-IP systems, EDGE-FX systems, and host
servers that also sit in your network data centers. All 3-DNS Controllers in
the network can receive and respond to DNS resolution requests from the
LDNS servers that clients use to connect to the domain.
Figure 2.1 illustrates the layout of the 3-DNS Controller, BIG-IP system,
and host servers in the three data centers. The Los Angeles data center
houses one 3-DNS Controller and one BIG-IP system, as does the New
York data center. The Tokyo data center houses only one 3-DNS Controller,
and one host server.
In the Los Angeles and New York data centers, the big3d agent runs on the
3-DNS Controllers and the BIG-IP systems, but in the Tokyo data center,
the big3d agent runs only on the 3-DNS Controller. Each big3d agent
collects information about the network path between the data center where it
is running and the client’s LDNS server in Chicago, as illustrated by the red
lines. Each big3d agent also broadcasts the network path information it
collects to the 3-DNS Controllers running in each data center, as illustrated
by the green, blue, and purple lines.
Note
Each 3-DNS Controller, BIG-IP system, and EDGE-FX system in a data
center typically runs a big3d agent.