DNS migrations—whether changing hosting providers, moving to a CDN, or updating IP addresses—require careful planning to avoid downtime. The right strategy depends on your requirements and risk tolerance.
The Standard Migration Process
A typical DNS migration follows these steps: 1) Lower TTL 24-48 hours in advance, 2) Set up new infrastructure and verify it works, 3) Update DNS records to point to new infrastructure, 4) Monitor propagation until complete, 5) Keep old infrastructure running during propagation, 6) Decommission old infrastructure after full propagation, 7) Increase TTL back to normal values.
Blue-Green DNS Migrations
For critical services, run both old (blue) and new (green) infrastructure simultaneously. Update DNS to point to green, but keep blue running and ready. If issues arise, you can quickly revert DNS back to blue. This approach trades infrastructure cost for safety and fast rollback capability.
Gradual Traffic Shifting
Some DNS providers support weighted routing, allowing you to gradually shift traffic. Start with 10% to new infrastructure, monitor for issues, then increase to 50%, then 100%. This limits blast radius if problems occur. Not all DNS providers support this feature.
Monitoring During Migration
During migration, continuously check propagation status from multiple locations. Our API lets you poll global DNS servers to see which regions have updated. Set up alerts for when propagation reaches 100%, and monitor your application logs for errors that might indicate some users are hitting old infrastructure.