DNS + Traffic Management + Monitoring + Failover
Comprehensive DNS Infrastructure Platform
When there's a major outage, the industry joke is that it's always "the DNS." It's funny until it isn't — DNS is critical infrastructure. Total Uptime provides a complete, independent DNS solution delivered from our global network — proven by six years of uninterrupted service — when 100% uptime is the only option.
Most DNS providers deliver only record hosting. To get failover, monitoring, and traffic control, you must combine 3–4 separate tools.
Every component works together. Monitoring triggers failover. Failover updates DNS. DNS routes traffic.
Global anycast DNS hosting with DNSSEC, IPv6, reverse DNS, custom TTL, all TLD support, and zone import/export tools.
Failover pools, round-robin routing, Geo DNS, traffic steering, and multi-region routing to control how users reach your infrastructure.
Ping, HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, content-match, and custom application checks. Monitors drive automatic failover decisions.
Health-check-driven DNS updates. Automatic traffic shifting. Manual override controls. Auto-rejoin prevention for recovered nodes.
Total Uptime is three products in one: authoritative DNS, DNS traffic management, and integrated monitoring & failover.
High-availability DNS record hosting across a global anycast network. Supports all record types (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, PTR), DNSSEC with large DKIM key support, reverse DNS, custom TTL from 60 seconds to 1 year, and any TLD including future TLDs.
Intelligent DNS routing that controls how users reach your infrastructure. Includes DNS failover pools, round-robin and weighted routing, Geo DNS with zone-based and proximity routing, traffic steering, and multi-region/multi-cloud failover capabilities.
Built-in health monitoring (Ping, HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, content-match, custom application checks) that drives automated failover decisions. Includes auto-rejoin control, manual failover override, maintenance windows, and comprehensive alerting.
Unlike competitors who separate DNS from monitoring, Total Uptime integrates them. When a server fails, DNS updates automatically.
Group your servers into failover pools with primary and secondary targets. Assign health monitors to each server.
Total Uptime continuously monitors your servers using Ping, HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, or custom application checks from multiple global locations.
When a monitor detects a failure, the system validates the outage from multiple vantage points to prevent false positives.
DNS records are automatically updated to remove the failed server and route traffic to healthy infrastructure. No manual intervention required.
When the server recovers, auto-rejoin controls prevent premature re-addition. Administrators maintain full control over recovery.
Most providers force you to bolt on monitoring, failover, and traffic management as paid add-ons or enterprise tiers. With Total Uptime everything is included.
| Capability | Total Uptime® | Cloudflare | AWS Route 53 | NS1 | Akamai Edge DNS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authoritative DNS | |||||
| DNS failover pools | Included | Paid add-on | |||
| Built-in health monitoring | Included | Paid add-on | Limited | Limited | Limited |
| Geo DNS routing | Paid add-on | ||||
| Secondary DNS / zone transfers | Enterprise only | Limited | |||
| TSIG authentication | Enterprise only | ||||
| DNSSEC | |||||
| Custom application checks | — | — | Limited | — | |
| Maintenance windows | — | — | — | — | |
| Auto-rejoin control | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | |
| 24/7 phone support included | Included | Enterprise only | Paid add-on | ||
| 100% uptime SLA | Enterprise only | ||||
| Predictable pricing | Usage-based | — | Custom | ||
| REST API |
For MSPs
Consolidate DNS, reduce incident risk, and create sticky recurring revenue with a premium managed DNS product.
Most MSPs manage dozens or hundreds of domains across scattered registrar DNS, Cloudflare, Route 53, and legacy providers. Total Uptime provides one operational model, one interface, one escalation path.
DNS is high-retention, low-touch, and expands naturally as you onboard clients. Package Total Uptime as "Managed DNS + Failover" or "Business Continuity DNS" for easy upselling.
A DNS outage is catastrophic and reputational for MSPs. Total Uptime's built-in monitoring and failover means infrastructure stays up even when servers fail.
Get partner margin on every DNS subscription. Standardize delivery, offer premium outcomes without engineering overhead. Easy for MSP sales teams to sell.
Full REST API for domain creation, DNS records, failover pools, monitoring, and geo-zones. Integrate into your existing MSP tooling and automation workflows.
Alert lists, maintenance windows, change logs, device status monitoring, RBAC, and 2FA. Everything MSPs need to manage DNS at scale across their client base.
No add-ons. No enterprise tier. No surprise bills. Every Cloud DNS subscription includes failover pools, monitoring, Geo DNS, secondary DNS, 24/7 phone support, and a 100% uptime SLA.
From $49 / month
Articles from our knowledge base on DNS failover, Geo DNS, DNSSEC, and zone transfers.
Knowledge Base
Total Uptime’s DNS failover works by constantly monitoring at least two servers using any number of fully customizable monitoring tests that you create. It allows you to send traffic to those servers via one of two methods. (1) You can use Round Robin to send traffic to all of your available servers, or (2) you can send traffic […]
Read moreKnowledge Base
We support two different DNS Failover methods. Sequential and Round Robin. Sequential Method: This method uses the server IP addresses one by one in the order they are entered. That way, you always have one IP address announced for your ‘A’ record, which is considered a primary server. Should that server go offline, the failover […]
Read moreKnowledge Base
We do! The feature you’re probably looking for is called Geo Weighting. This is the modern and improved version of GEO Proximity routing, traditionally called Global Server Load Balancing. If you’re looking for a way to route a distributed audience (whether in the USA or around the world), the Geo Weighting feature is probably what […]
Read moreKnowledge Base
We recently added an easy-to-use implementation of DNSSEC in our UI. The currently deployed version in our UI makes it nearly impossible to misconfigure. Every time you make a change, it is queued for review by one of our NOC engineers to ensure that the requested actions will not impact any existing chain of trust. […]
Read moreKnowledge Base
If you want to replicate one of your primary domains here at Total Uptime to another DNS server or provider, here are the steps you need to take: First you must create a ZONE TRANSFER POOL. This can be done by going to the ZONE TRANSFERS tab under the main CLOUD DNS tab. Within that […]
Read moreKnowledge Base
In this video we provide an overview of the Cloud DNS functionality within our Cloud Management Portal. Learn how to create domains manually and via the import tool, copy domains, assign Zone Transfer pools, plus a brief overview of DNS Failover, GEO Zones and Monitors. Prefer to read the manual? You can find the entire […]
Read moreFAQ
Quick answers to the questions infrastructure teams ask most.
Authoritative DNS only hosts records and responds to queries — there is no monitoring, no failover, and no traffic intelligence. When a server goes down, DNS keeps pointing at the dead server until somebody manually updates the record. Comprehensive DNS (Total Uptime) hosts the records and continuously monitors your servers. When a failure is detected, DNS is automatically updated to route traffic to healthy infrastructure.
DNS failover uses health monitors to detect when servers become unavailable. When a monitor detects a failure — via Ping, HTTP, HTTPS, or a custom application check — the DNS system automatically removes the failed server from responses and directs traffic to healthy servers in the failover pool. Total Uptime’s pools support configurable thresholds, auto-rejoin controls to prevent premature recovery, manual overrides, and maintenance windows to suppress alerts during planned work.
Yes. Total Uptime supports full AXFR and IXFR zone transfers with TSIG authentication, so you can run us as your primary or as a secondary alongside an existing provider for true multi-provider redundancy. No vendor lock-in.
Yes. 24/7/365 phone and email support is included in every Cloud DNS subscription — not gated behind an enterprise tier or paid add-on.
Total Uptime backs the platform with a 100% uptime SLA on DNS query response. The service has run for six consecutive years without a global outage. Full SLA terms are available in the master services agreement.