Since it appears DNS goofiness is about to return, I put together
a timeline of significant events that affected DNS service technically
over the last 20 years.
http://www.donelan.com/dnstimeline.html
In comparison with other utilities, DNS performs about average. AT&T's
telephone network had two major nationewide failures in the last 20 years.
Several electrical grids have failed, including the grid covering the
Western States due to a single tall tree. All the root servers have been
down once, and there have been a couple of instances of zone files being
truncated in the last 20 years. Not perfect, but amazingly robust for a
technology operated by humans.
Just in case anyone is wondering what Sean is referring to:
http://www.icann.org/general/lynn-reform-proposal-24feb02.htm
Basically the CEO of ICANN is saying "we give up" or "we can't control
absolutely everything with all these pesky requirement regarding
representation" and that DNS management needs to be turned over to
governments(ala a WIPO-type organization) and their cronies with a
self-referencing representational structure(read little to no
representation of anyone besides governments and their appointees via a
"Nominating comittee")
Watching this play out should be fascinating.
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Patrick Greenwell
Asking the wrong questions is the leading cause of wrong answers
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who didn't see this coming:
http://www.icann.org/cctlds/au/
"Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better
than the government we got for one third the money twenty years ago."
- Will Rogers
Lucy E. Lynch Academic User Services
Computing Center University of Oregon
llynch@darkwing.uoregon.edu (541) 346-1774/Cell: 912-7998