Case study: Cloud DNS, DNS Failover
File exchange and content collaboration company improves processes and solidifies DNS reliability.
The Customer
Thru Inc. is an online file exchange and collaboration platform. With Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions from Thru, businesses can securely exchange files with an easy-to-use interface. Their enterprise-grade Content Collaboration Platform (CCP) allows customers to sync, share, and exchange files through applications such as Microsoft Outlook and IBM Notes. Thru offers niche solutions for niche problems, and they enjoy solving difficult file sharing challenges. The company is highly rated by its customers and was named as a vendor in Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms.
“The reliability and support provided by Total Uptime is exactly what Thru was looking for.”
-Kevin Westenkirchner, Vice President, Operations.
The Challenge
DNS has been called the phonebook of the internet. If you know the domain name of a website or server, a well-functioning domain name service will quickly direct you to it. But sometimes the process breaks down. That’s what Thru Inc. was experiencing.
We all know that network devices fail. We live in an imperfect world. Network management systems account for this vulnerability by installing redundant devices that are ready at a moment’s notice to take over the primary device’s function. But a backup system isn’t good for anything if users can’t reach it.
To deal with so many file exchange transactions, Thru uses hundreds of DNS records to direct users to whatever resource is needed at that time. This can be a very dynamic process. If a transaction loses track and can’t find a needed resource through DNS, the process will fail. With such constant change, their DNS needs to be rock solid. So Thru turned to Total Uptime to help with their DNS reliability.
The Solution
The answer for Thru was to deploy Total Uptime’s Cloud DNS. The DNS service is part of Total Uptime’s global cloud platform and allows Thru to easily implement changes within a moment’s notice, either using an always-available web management console, or programmatically through a REST API. Furthermore, with the use of DNS Failover automation, outages and other undesired events can be detected and mitigated without any manual intervention.
Today, Thru modifies DNS often for planned maintenance and other activities to ensure their customers always have access to their critical file transfer solutions.
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