IBM NS1 Connect Reviews

My primary use case for IBM NS1 Connect is improving the availability and the response time for our internet-facing applications by directing users to healthy and appropriate endpoints. For example, organizations with application instances in multiple regions can use health checks and traffic steering policies to avoid sending new DNS responses to an unhealthy endpoint.

With respect to how I use health checks and traffic steering policies in my day-to-day work, it helps us improve application availability and reduce latency. For example, if the application is running in two different regions and one region becomes unhealthy or starts responding slowly, IBM NS1 Connect helps us detect the endpoint issues. A heartbeat request is sent to both servers, and if any of the servers does not acknowledge the request, then IBM NS1 Connect will assume that this server has gone down. With this, we can redirect new requests to the healthy alternative server, which reduces the need for manual DNS changes during incidents, helping us to minimize disruption for users.

IBM NS1 Connect impacts my organization positively by saving eight engineer hours per month; at a fully loaded cost of $40 per hour, that is $320 monthly or $3,840 annually in labor value. This avoids downtime during important incidents that require our support.

Regarding specific incidents where IBM NS1 Connect helped avoid downtime or saved significant time or money, one example is that we found routing users to a geographically nearest location did not always provide the fastest connection. We used performance-based DNS routing with IBM NS1 Connect, which reported a 10 to 15 percent latency improvement, allowing users at the 75th percentile to reach good responses while we could direct them to the nearest geographically located server. Additionally, we had a complex traffic steering situation that saved millions.

The best features IBM NS1 Connect offers include the authoritative DNS filter chain, traffic steering policies, and endpoint health monitoring, along with its API-first automation and DNS reporting, which are all some of the most valuable features.

Out of those features, I find myself relying on the traffic steering policies the most because we detect the endpoints and steer new DNS responses towards healthy alternatives. This is very helpful because whenever there is a massive amount of requests coming into the region or to the server, and for a better user interface and customer experience, we should not show the user that the server is down. We can reroute the request to the server nearest to that region, making it an important capability. The authoritative DNS ensures DNS queries for domains and reliable DNS resolution are essential for users, particularly to discover application endpoints, but it alone does not guarantee this. The API-first automation automates DNS configurations and changes through APIs and infrastructure as code workflows, reducing repetitive manual work and the risk of human error. The DNS reporting and analytics help teams understand query volume, traffic distribution, and unusual behavior under the support of troubleshooting and capacity planning.

I believe that while every service provided by IBM NS1 Connect is crucial for the future, there are areas for improvement such as making filter chain configuration easier, improving monitoring and incident troubleshooting, and possibly enhancing documentation and onboarding facilities.

Concerning the needed improvements, with regard to filter chain configuration, I think advanced traffic policies can be difficult for new teams. A visual policy builder or plain language explanations, or a simulator that shows which endpoint each rule selects, would be very helpful for new team members and would significantly reduce configuration mistakes while speeding up onboarding.

My experience with IBM NS1 Connect spans one and a half years, during which I have used it in production and pilot environments. I have worked with some of the main important features.

IBM NS1 Connect is stable so far, and we have not faced any issues yet.

The scalability of IBM NS1 Connect depends on the plan, including query record limits, monitor limits, and filter limits, but generally, the application is scalable along with the DNS traffic profile.

Our experience with customer support has been mixed; while some team members are really helpful and responsive, there have been instances where responses to complex technical issues are slower because they need to evaluate and provide support. Moreover, I believe subscribing to a higher plan would ensure immediate support to prevent losing too many customers, particularly premium customers.

I would rate customer support as three out of ten.

Previously, we have been using IBM Management Connect since the very beginning.

Regarding return on investment, this automation saves eight engineer hours per month, which at $40 per hour translates to about $320 monthly and approximately $3,840 annually, allowing us to save around four to five lakhs of rupees.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that before selecting this product, these factors were crucial because every organization considers these aspects before making a purchase decision. My experience indicates that the initial technical setup is fairly straightforward, and once DNS architecture and requirements are clear, the advanced graphic tools and integrations require some planning and testing. Licensing poses a more challenging part since the cost depends on the plan, DNS query volume, check monitors, filter limits, and additional capabilities. Some of our clients have described the pricing as expensive compared to alternatives, so I recommend organizations assess their requirements and desired features to better understand the implementation and costs involved.

Before choosing IBM NS1 Connect, we evaluated other options, specifically Amazon Route 53 and Cloudflare. We found that since Azure DNS fits naturally into our Azure ecosystem, we wanted better and optimized DNS performance and intelligent traffic steering mechanisms, leading us to choose IBM NS1 Connect based on these two standout requirements.

I rate IBM NS1 Connect as seven out of ten.

I choose seven out of ten for IBM NS1 Connect because it provides many good definitions and capabilities such as strong intelligent traffic steering, monitoring, DNS automation, and global management. These capabilities help reduce downtime, improve application performance, and minimize manual operational work, but I find the advanced filter chain configurations present a learning curve, and troubleshooting and testing could be more intuitive. Pricing is also a concern when compared to alternatives like Amazon Route 53 and Azure DNS. Overall, it is a capable solution for our organization.

Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's governance and security capabilities, I think they are strong. Organizations are very keen to understand how their data is protected and how customer data is not breached in online security protocols, making this a crucial criterion before purchasing. I believe that IBM NS1 Connect has a solid foundation for DNS governance and security, supporting role-based user and API key management and accountability visibility. DNS security protects the integrity of DNS responses, while from a governance perspective, utility teams can manage access according to responsibilities and automate DNS changes through APIs. However, more intuitive audit and rollback capabilities directly in the interface, along with clearer visibility into changes made, are necessary. The overall security capabilities are valuable, but strong access controls, change reviews, and monitoring are still necessary to maintain a secure direction.

For IBM NS1 Connect's accuracy and reliability of output, since we have been using it, I feel it is very reliable in terms of DNS resolution and intelligent traffic steering. Its ability is phenomenal, especially when configured with accurate health checks and performance data. It helps direct users toward suitable endpoints and improve routing decisions. The output is also accurate as monitoring data checks configurations and policies to provide actual output. However, false positives, false signals, or incorrect rules can result in traffic being directed toward unsuitable endpoints, which is why I rate it as a seven. It is beneficial, but there is room for improvement.

My advice to others looking into using IBM NS1 Connect is to first figure out what their requirements are and ensure they have a clear understanding of it. For those particularly interested in optimized versions of intelligent traffic steering and health monitoring checkups, they can proceed with selecting IBM NS1 Connect, but I strongly recommend exploring other options as well.

IBM NS1 Connect serves as our managed authoritative DNS and traffic steering service, which is highly reliable, and its performance is excellent for a global Anycast network.

For a specific example of how I'm using IBM NS1 Connect in my environment, we use it as our public recursive servers. All our internal traffic, when it wants to reach out to the internet, is sent to our NS1 servers, which in turn handles the DDoS and the DNS security layer. It also delivers the global server load balancing services for our enterprise.

Regarding how it fits into my overall infrastructure, IBM NS1 Connect is a key platform that allows our users to resolve public DNS queries.

IBM NS1 Connect integrates with our existing IT infrastructure seamlessly because whatever queries users generate internally within our customer environment are easily sent over DNS ports. It allows DNS over HTTPS, which provides DNS security while sending logs and queries from internal to external servers, evaluating and receiving data over the Anycast network for reliability and low latency.

IBM NS1 Connect has impacted my organization positively by helping us intelligently filter the chain of highly custom real-time routing based on our geographic proximity, with server health and network latency being strong. The real reliability and uptime of the global Anycast service are 100%, which we really appreciate.

We have seen high reliability and uptime and low latency due to Anycast availability, and the redundancy of the server is also highly available across geographic locations.

The best features IBM NS1 Connect offers include GSLB and Geo-steering services, which help to reduce latency, directly impacting revenues. It also has modernized GSLB services, which help to reduce the data center footprint by load balancing the DNS traffic across different data centers.

Geo-steering impacts my operations by helping with real user measurement for NS1 Maps, where it maps a user's geographic location and the local ISP network condition. Then it helps to steer them to the specific CDN edge or the provided data center, offering low latency at the exact millisecond. With the help of GSLB, I use it to route traffic to a distributed data center, minimizing for the high availability and disaster recovery scenarios.

IBM NS1 Connect also offers high uptime Anycast infrastructure, which is very useful.

The level of automation available in IBM NS1 Connect includes automated alerts and support for API REST V2 integration, which can be tuned and utilized as per consumer or customer needs.

IBM NS1 Connect supports disaster recovery and business continuity in our organization through the GSLB feature, which supports multi-data center routing technology. We can host our application wherever our presence is, supporting disaster recovery situations and automated failover scenarios with 99.99% uptime.

IBM NS1 Connect helps with performance monitoring and reporting. I find the analytics and dashboards quite useful in noticing and monitoring the query count and the number of queries being handled per zone.

IBM NS1 Connect has a very steep learning curve in terms of learning the custom filter chains and the complex multi-region setup, which requires a specialized DNS expert and can be difficult for beginners. One has to get trained on IBM NS1 before starting to use it.

The documentation and the interface could be improved, as a step-by-step video configuration guide would be helpful in new implementations. Daily change audit features and easier rollback options should also be provided in the GUI itself.

The dashboard and the GUI have gray areas for advanced tasks, which require API interaction and can be overwhelming for beginners.

We have been using IBM NS1 Connect for the last two years.

IBM NS1 Connect is highly stable.

IBM NS1 Connect handles scaling as our organization grows very well. It is easy to use because when the user queries for an AI app or NS1, real user measurement health signals steer traffic to the data center or cloud instance with low latency and optimal GPU availability. It also performs similar to Netlify, using NS1 with a low TTL capability to propagate DNS updates globally in under five seconds, which is highly commendable.

As a SaaS solution, IBM NS1 Connect is highly scalable, with the DNS server infrastructure behind the Anycast solution being highly scalable.

Customer support for IBM NS1 Connect is good.

We did not use any other solution aside from IBM NS1 Connect.

We can see a return on investment as we need only a few engineers to manage the global scalability and internet domain, conducting web application hosting using NS1.

We did not evaluate any other options before choosing IBM NS1 Connect.

Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, I think its governance and security are great as it's a SaaS-based solution, and the governance is also good.

While we haven't had a very close connection with IBM NS1 Connect for its AI capability, it does not support any such module. However, whatever is done in the backend to provide DNS services is good.

IBM NS1 Connect is deployed in our organization as we are consuming the service as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution.

For this SaaS deployment, we use IBM Cloud, a private cloud.

For those considering using IBM NS1 Connect, I advise being prepared for a complicated web GUI for daily zone management and complex traffic sharing. Sometimes, you need to use API-based integration, which can be overwhelming and may require support from NS1 support, so one has to be very careful about the implementation of basic day-to-day configuration.

I would rate IBM NS1 Connect a nine on a scale of one to ten.

My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is to improve user experience, and it offers smart routing, which helps sites to be reliable and performance gets improved. In my organization, the use case involved huge traffic and it was very necessary for the system to be responsive at all times. It is very useful where system demand is very high and more traffic is coming. It is very efficient and gives the best return on investment. In my organization, we also use it to manage DNS for the application within ServiceNow. Low latency and smart traffic routing are key features that impress me. It addresses the automation challenges that we encounter when working with tools like ServiceNow and need reliable service delivery across all environments. Endpoint switching based on latency is great. DNS response time is perfect.

The best features that IBM NS1 Connect offers include routing based on user verification, endpoint switching based on latency, DNS response time, real-time monitoring, intelligent traffic routing capabilities, API-driven functionality, HTTPS redirects, secondary DNS, and API integrations. It helps to connect for external DNS and HTTPS redirects. The ability to have a diverse secondary DNS server is also key. It has been a solid platform for us and we have not experienced any significant issues.

IBM NS1 Connect has positively impacted my organization by providing controlled downtime, reduced downtime, and time saving through automation, as approximately forty to fifty percent of our time is saved through automation and enhanced visibility. The metrics and real-time monitoring are probably the most powerful features. Automation has really saved us time because this tool is able to automate most of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks. We are able to save time because of the automation.

IBM NS1 Connect can be improved by providing learning materials depicting flows that can help users who are completely new to networking, which would be great. Pricing can be more transparent, especially when dealing with tight budgets. The user interface is somewhat complex to adapt, especially for new users. It should be made more intuitive and user-friendly. Disposable online videos and tutorials on how to use this tool would be beneficial.

I have been using IBM NS1 Connect for four years and three years and several months.

IBM NS1 Connect is very stable as I have not experienced any lagging or downtime.

The scalability of IBM NS1 Connect is highly scalable as it grows with my organization's needs.

The customer support for IBM NS1 Connect is very proactive and responsive twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I previously used Google Cloud DNS, and the reason I switched from Google Cloud DNS is definitely because of the automation capabilities and flexibility that it offers.

I have definitely seen a return on investment with IBM NS1 Connect as it has given our organization more control and flexibility in managing DNS at a global scale, which almost was impossible before. It has made the process more efficient and at a reasonable cost, saving time, effort, and money. The smart traffic routing is the best.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the cost can be more transparent, especially for organizations working on a tight budget.

Before choosing IBM NS1 Connect, I evaluated other options such as GitHub and ServiceNow App Engine.

IBM NS1 Connect is an excellent traffic management system. It helps us to route traffic based on location, latency, and many other factors. The ability to automate DNS management is a key feature that I love. The metrics and real-time monitoring are probably the most powerful features I have witnessed.

My advice to others looking into using IBM NS1 Connect is that it offers great automation capabilities and flexibility. It provides much more control over how traffic is routed when compared with other tools. The operational efficiency is also great when compared to other alternatives, making it a very recommended tool. It is well-suited for applications where the availability of applications is totally crucial and downtime affects business significantly. It also helps when traffic needs to be routed across multiple regions. However, I would not fully recommend it for small-scale environments or teams that have very little network experience, as they might face complexity because of the vast number of features of IBM NS1 Connect.

IBM NS1 Connect is very suitable especially for businesses requiring high application availability, needing to improve performance and advanced traffic steering capability, especially in complex multi-cloud environments, as it ensures maximum uptime. I would rate IBM NS1 Connect overall at eight out of ten.

In a network with significant traffic, I use IBM NS1 Connect to manage traffic in real time in an intelligent way based on the connected host in order to improve network performance.

In a network with many hosts and irregular traffic, I need a tool that guarantees low latency and high availability. IBM NS1 Connect provides a scalable DNS server that manages traffic depending heavily on time by adding or changing DNS records in real time.

IBM NS1 Connect has helped me manage the network effectively.

IBM NS1 Connect has had a positive impact on my organization by improving reliability and performance, which were the two main goals I obtained in the project with this product.

Regarding how reliability and performance improved, I noticed that the percentage of uptime was the first goal, achieving 99%, with the second goal being a very low TTL, measuring a time of less than five seconds.

The best feature of IBM NS1 Connect is the dynamic management of latency without fixed rules.

In testing, I have manual adjustment capabilities, but after this manual adjustment, IBM NS1 Connect can manage itself and try to scale automatically, helping me reach my goals of 99% uptime instead of experiencing problems reaching the network.

Another unique feature of IBM NS1 Connect is that it works seamlessly with both physical networks and the cloud together, ensuring effective performance for internal and cloud networks simultaneously.

Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities for security, I know that the product conforms to my normative requirements, and I rate it highly because it allows me to configure a dedicated, separated DNS and a secondary DNS with another provider, preventing a single point of failure, which is one of the best advantages of this product.

In terms of IBM NS1 Connect's accuracy and reliability of output, I find that it consistently chooses the best DNS, and I have not encountered any issues with accuracy in my project.

I have tried Pulsar, which is a module of IBM NS1 Connect that allows for routing traffic based on real user monitoring by collecting data from JavaScript to analyze it effectively. When a user accesses the domain, IBM NS1 Connect automatically directs them to the endpoint with the best performance.

In my project, I use only Pulsar.

I have used IBM NS1 Connect for one year, which was several years ago.

IBM NS1 Connect is very stable.

IBM NS1 Connect's scalability is very high, managing scenarios with a large volume of queries by distributing load among free nodes, and it also offers a linear cost structure relative to traffic.

Customer support for IBM NS1 Connect is very good, with a wealth of documentation available on the IBM portal, and the IBM technical and commercial manager is very helpful when working with me.

I rate the customer support a 10 out of 10.

The main advantage for my customer using IBM NS1 Connect is its reliability, as I had high downtime before its implementation and now achieve 99% uptime, a significant improvement for my customer.

My experience with IBM pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I work with IBM and have a very high number of products from them. The licensing is clear on the IBM internet site, with different plans depending on traffic quantity, and some module prices are available on request. The essentials plan is very affordable, costing less than 100 a month.

Before implementing IBM NS1 Connect, I did not evaluate other options because my customer already had this product, so I used, configured, and tested IBM NS1 Connect without a software selection process.

I rate IBM NS1 Connect a perfect 10 out of 10.

I choose 10 out of 10 because it stands out exceedingly well for me.

My advice for those considering IBM NS1 Connect is to purchase the Pulsar module for scalability, especially when operating in a multi-cloud environment.

I have worked on both deployment models of IBM NS1 Connect in the company's environment and in the clouds. I utilize IBM NS1 Connect's Intelligent Traffic Steering feature.

The best benefits of using IBM NS1 Connect are the performance and availability of the product towards the cloud. When comparing the performance with other products, I believe it is above par. It is really helpful and gives me at least a 20 to 30% improvement in functionality.

We were able to increase the traffic with the help of the analytical tools, but they should be more user-friendly. That portion is a little bit complicated as of now, which comes as part of the product's default feature.

It is very easy to assess the impact of IBM NS1 Connect's policy management on my network operations. It is just a matter of configuring the normal network policies, so the configuration of the policies is very straightforward.

The aspect that needs improvement about IBM NS1 Connect is that the integration with AI is not seamless at this moment. That particular portion needs to be re-evaluated.

We were able to increase the traffic with the help of the analytical tools, but they should be more user-friendly. That portion is a little bit complicated as of now, which comes as part of the product's default feature.

I have been working with the product for more than 15 years.

I do not have that much exposure to this particular area, but I did not face any challenges regarding the platform's capability to manage DNS traffic and handle demand spikes.

The technical support is slow. You raise a PR, and then it takes several weeks for them to respond. It is a little bit slow.

Implementation was seamless and I faced no challenges with it. It is easy.

It did not take much time to implement IBM NS1 Connect. It was a straightforward process for me and did not take too much time. It was very easy.

I would say the implementation takes about one day of actual work. The work spans months or several months, but the actual work is very easy. It is an organized product, so it is a straightforward process.

I was part of the implementation process. It was done by me along with my team.

We were a team of 12 people who were involved in all of these activities.

We had a combination of engineers, administrators, and developers in the team.

The licensing cost is reasonable. When I compare it to other products, it is reasonable.

I purchased IBM NS1 Connect through AWS Marketplace. We do use analytical tools built into the product. I rate this product 9 out of 10.

My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is for DNS management, traffic routing, and improving application availability. In day-to-day operations, it helps us manage DNS records, route traffic efficiently, and maintain reliable connectivity for our cloud-hosted applications.

A specific example of how I use IBM NS1 Connect for traffic routing and improving application availability is managing DNS routing for a cloud-hosted application and directing users to the appropriate endpoints. When maintaining application infrastructure behind an AWS load balancer, DNS routing helps direct traffic to the configured endpoint and supports application availability during infrastructure changes.

We primarily focus on DNS management, efficient traffic routing, and maintaining reliable access to our cloud-hosted application. We also value the centralized DNS control and the ability to support availability as our infrastructure grows.

IBM NS1 Connect has positively impacted our organization by simplifying DNS management, improving traffic routing, and supporting the availability of our cloud-hosted application. Its automation capabilities reduce manual DNS changes and make infrastructure updates easier to manage. Overall, it helps us maintain more consistent traffic management as our cloud environment grows.

We have noticed smoother DNS management and fewer manual interventions when making infrastructure changes. API-driven automation helps simplify DNS updates and reduce the risk of configuration errors. The main benefits have been improved operational consistency and easier traffic management.

IBM NS1 Connect offers intelligent traffic routing, DNS automation, real-time traffic steering, and health-based routing. These capabilities help direct users to appropriate endpoints, improve application availability, and simplify DNS management. I also value its API-driven automation, which makes it easier to integrate DNS changes into cloud and DevOps workflows.

I find myself relying most on health-based routing because it helps direct users to healthy application endpoints and reduces the risk of sending traffic to unavailable services. Combined with an AWS load balancer, it supports application availability during infrastructure changes and helps provide a more reliable user experience.

I value IBM NS1 Connect's flexible DNS management, intelligent traffic routing, and API-driven automation. These features help simplify infrastructure operations and support application availability. Deeper monitoring insights and easier troubleshooting would make the experience even better.

IBM NS1 Connect could be improved with more intuitive dashboards, clearer troubleshooting guidance, and more detailed real-time visibility into DNS performance and traffic routing. Deeper integration with AWS monitoring tools and simpler configuration of health checks would also help teams identify issues faster and automate DNS management more efficiently.

Better documentation with practical examples, easier API integrations, and more detailed audit logs would make IBM NS1 Connect even more useful. I would also appreciate proactive alerts for DNS configuration issues, simpler setup for advanced routing policies, and clearer usage and pricing insights to help optimize performance and cost.

I have been using IBM NS1 Connect for approximately four to six months.

I would rate IBM NS1 Connect eight out of ten.

I chose eight out of ten because IBM NS1 Connect provides flexible DNS management, intelligent traffic routing, and API-driven automation that help improve application availability. However, better troubleshooting tools, more dashboards, and clearer pricing would make the overall experience even better.

Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, I believe AI governance and security should prioritize data privacy, transparency, access control, and auditability. Any AI-driven recommendations in IBM NS1 Connect should be explainable, follow least-privilege principles, and allow human oversight for critical DNS and traffic routing changes. Clear documentation of how AI uses operational data would further build confidence.

AI-driven insights can be useful for identifying traffic patterns and supporting DNS troubleshooting, but their accuracy depends on the quality of the underlying data and the context. I would validate important recommendations against monitoring data before making production changes. Clearer explanations, consistent results, and human oversight are important for maintaining reliability.

We deploy IBM NS1 Connect in a public cloud environment alongside our AWS-hosted infrastructure. It supports DNS management and traffic routing for our cloud-hosted application, helping us maintain reliable connectivity and manage DNS changes efficiently.

I recommend starting with a proof of concept to test DNS management, traffic routing, and health-based routing with your existing cloud infrastructure. Evaluate its AWS integration, API automation, monitoring capabilities, and pricing before a full rollout. Configure health checks carefully and establish monitoring and rollback procedures to maintain application availability during DNS changes.

My customers use IBM NS1 Connect's intelligent traffic steering. Intelligent traffic steering helps optimize application performance as a client directly interacts with the IBM counterpart to integrate all components, and it is quite easy and user-friendly.

The best features in IBM NS1 Connect for me are basically the easy integration with other endpoint solutions.

I assess policy customization in IBM NS1 Connect as the greatest advantage that we observe in QRadar impacting our customer's network operations.

IBM NS1 Connect's API-driven architecture has helped my organization with digital transformation as it is an open standard. Architecture-wise, I can say it is a good integration, but few OEMs or solutions do not provide that capability of an API interface. For that, we need to build a custom connector, and there we are facing a problem.

I believe every product has room for improvement, and I found some weak sides in IBM NS1 Connect.

I think the support for upcoming technical updates in IBM NS1 Connect could be improved as they are not up to the mark, and their development or new enhancements are very slow.

We have found that the API interface is another area of improvement. We found a couple of scenarios where API was not supported by their point product, and we got stuck there. For that, we need some additional custom-built connector, and we found that there is a delay from IBM.

I have been familiar with IBM NS1 Connect for almost seven years.

If I had to give a rating of technical support from IBM on a scale from one to ten, I would rate it seven to eight, so you can mention eight.

I have not worked with DataStax Enterprise from IBM as it is a NoSQL solution.

The deployment of IBM NS1 Connect is actually quite easy to install.

I participate in the deployment process and was a part of the deployment team, and I led the team.

It actually takes three to four weeks to deploy, based on their environment.

Overall, almost ten plus people were involved in the deployment and the implementation.

Those people involved in the deployment are technical support members; they are not developers as such, and they are implementers only, system integrators.

My company stands more like a system integrator. We are in partnership with IBM as a distributor and preferred integrator.

I am not overall satisfied with the license and cost for IBM NS1 Connect because my pre-sales team interacts on that part regarding pricing. My role is just to integrate and design solutions, so I am not looking into the commercial part.

I would rate IBM NS1 Connect in general at six to seven because all of the features are there, but the cost is quite high. Other competitors have offered a very low price compared to IBM, and that aspect is very tough for us to convince clients.

It is beneficial when I already implement the product, but that is after the fact. Before convincing a client, before implementation, or at the initial POC stage, it becomes a challenge because every time a cost factor comes into the picture. The customer or client always figures out that another OEM is providing this competitive cost and questions why not IBM.

I am familiar with the IBM product line.

I actually know products such as IBM NS1 Connect or perhaps IBM Planning Analytics, but I am just working on QRadar only.

I also work with IBM NS1 Connect from time to time; earlier I used to work on that.

IBM NS1 Connect was purchased directly from the vendor, not through some other stores or AWS Marketplace.

Managing DNS traffic using IBM NS1 Connect has required some additional efforts from a development perspective to build new rules and correlation rules, but their rule engine and development support is quite good.

I have not used IBM NS1 Connect Analytics. My overall rating for this product is six out of ten.

My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is to direct users to servers based on geographic location and availability, as I mostly use it for cloud applications in a network.

I want to give you a specific example of a situation in which I used IBM NS1 Connect to direct users to different servers. I used a data center in Brazil, in São Paulo, and we made a connection between the São Paulo data center in Brazil to Miami in the United States, resulting in lower latency and a faster site for each region.

The best features that IBM NS1 Connect offers, in my opinion, are the Intelligent Traffic Steering, high availability, API First, automated failover, CDN, multi-cloud capabilities, and security.

I would appreciate the opportunity to go deeper into how the intelligence and high availability impact my day-to-day work. The intelligence criterion directs the user to the best server based on latency and availability with 100% SLA for DNS resolution, and the API makes automation easier and reduces manual errors, plus it detects failures and redirects users. For security, I appreciate the support for SSO, SAML, and DDoS attack mitigation.

IBM NS1 Connect has a positive impact on my organization, as I believe it improves security, availability, and DDoS attack mitigation because it detects failures and automatically redirects users to healthy resources.

A concrete result that demonstrates this impact is that we notice a significant increase in security and are able to reduce downtime in what concerns user activity.

I think IBM NS1 Connect could be improved in several areas. The Filter Chain and Steering features are strong but complex, so making them a little easier or providing more didactic material would help. I also think the cost is a bit high compared to other more traditional solutions such as Route 53, Azure, and Cloudflare.

Regarding the improvements needed, the interface could be a bit smaller because I find it a bit large, and there is a higher price for large environments.

I have been working in my current field for four years.

I have been using IBM NS1 Connect for approximately two years.

IBM NS1 Connect is very stable.

The scalability of IBM NS1 Connect is that it sits at the DNS layer before the application, so when the number of users increases, it can distribute traffic automatically across multiple servers, clouds, or regions.

I have never used customer support for IBM NS1 Connect because our IT department is centralized, and users do not make this contact, but from what I hear, the support is very good.

I previously used a different solution, specifically Route 53 and Cloudflare DNS, but we changed to IBM NS1 Connect because it has more features and I do not need to use several other tools.

I have noticed that the implementation of IBM NS1 Connect shows that there is no need for so many people, guiding the metrics in such a way that it became easier for those who make use of this tool.

My company has a commercial relationship with this vendor, and we are a reseller.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been that I found it a bit expensive and had some difficulty with the language issue, having to use a translator for licensing. However, in general terms, it is good and the company covers most of the cost for me, but I think it is an excellent service.

Before choosing IBM NS1 Connect, I did not evaluate other options, as I use what the organization determines, but I confess that I think it was the best choice.

My advice to others who are thinking about using IBM NS1 Connect is that it is a very good, complete platform with multi-cloud scalability, but one has to consider the cost based on the number of employees and how they will use this tool.

I do not have any other comments about IBM NS1 Connect except that overall it is a very good tool that I recommend, but I mentioned regarding the cost that I do not know if there is a light version or a tool with fewer features at a more affordable price. I rated this review a 10 out of 10.

My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is handling DNS traffic and routing traffic. A specific example of how I use IBM NS1 Connect to route traffic is routing the API, the websites' API, and the apps from IBM Connect.

The best features IBM NS1 Connect offers are API deployment and automating DNS traffic routing, such as changing during deployment or incidents. The auto DNS traffic routing helps during deployment or incidents by providing more reliability and faster performance. In addition to these features, IBM NS1 Connect offers traffic gain, traffic steering, real-time failover, multi-CDN, performance-aware routing, and operational visibility. IBM NS1 Connect has positively impacted my organization through its intelligent traffic control layer, as it is not just a static domain name service, but an intelligent service.

I believe IBM NS1 Connect can be improved in several ways. The main concern I identified is the cost, which is higher than other solutions despite its uses. Additionally, they could improve their health check before routing traffic. Another improvement would be to automate changes through CI/CD. During deployment, the use of API to shift traffic gradually is an aspect I think they can improve. I believe they could do this gradually, such as 5%, 25%, or 50%, which would reduce the risk compared to switching everything at once.

I have been using IBM NS1 Connect for a year.

IBM NS1 Connect is stable.

For scalability, it mainly means we can handle large traffic volume, domain records, and complex global routing. It helps us to authenticate the DNS network, traffic steering, and API-driven operations.

The customer support is the best, as they are always available.

I have not previously used a different solution, as this is my first DNS work.

My advice to others looking into using IBM NS1 Connect is that you can go with IBM NS1 Connect, but you should do better tutorials and practice.

I have seen a return on investment mainly in time saved, and since it is AI-based, fewer employees are needed.

Before choosing IBM NS1 Connect, I did not evaluate other options, as my first option was IBM.

Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, the accuracy and reliability of output involve least privileged API keys, API key rotation, secret management, and monitoring and alerting, with alerts on critical DNS changes. In terms of IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, its governance and security provide good security, such as DNS control, since DNS changes can cause outages and redirect traffic incorrectly. There is clear control around who can change DNS and how changes are approved, through role-based access control, separation of duties, and auto audit logging. The least privileged API keys, test failover, regular test failovers, improved observability, and added rollback logic are fields that need improvement. I would rate IBM NS1 Connect an eight out of ten.

We use Managed DNS to steer traffic for our API. It handles customer-facing records and the upstream selection logic. 

Managed DNS enabled us to build what we have built. No other DNS solution could do what NS1 is doing as efficiently and developer-friendly as needed. When we chose NS1 in 2014, we were selecting from a bunch of other vendors and potential solutions. We were about ready to give up and develop a homegrown DNS solution because we were not happy with everything that existed. By that, I mean every possible DNS provider around the world. No other solution could handle our load, so we were thinking about building our own when we were introduced to NS1. 

Our use case is customized. They developed custom features for us like Managed DNS features filter-chain technology. NS1 has a logic that isn't possible to express with other filter chains. They created a filter that merges using custom logic. It improved our DNS response times in general. We migrated from Route 53 to NS1, and the response time works pretty well for us.

We leverage two things from Managed DNS that we couldn't do with any other solution. One is their filter chain technology, which allows us to shift some of the intelligence we need for the traffic steering to the DNS. The second one is data sources, which enables us to manipulate multiple records simultaneously using NS1's internal message DOS. In our case, we are trying to direct the traffic in over 150,000 different NS1 records to an arbitrary set of repeating responses. 

If we have about 1,000 endpoints, that translates to around 150,000 records. Assuming there's an even distribution, so every time a server fails or an endpoint goes on a level, we would have 150 updates. With NS1, we have one, so this had an even more significant effect. There are situations where we have thousands of specific records sharing the same responses. In that case, there is one update instead of thousands and thousands.

When we chose Managed DNS in 2014, it was the only solution that could do what we wanted, but I'm not sure about the current state of the market. The NS1 API is an API on top of a managed DNS. It's not an afterthought. It's not like the solution existed. 

Someone was sending updates by email. Then a product manager came along and said, "Hey, there is this cool thing. It's called an API. Maybe we should do it?" And they are like, "Okay. Let's do it."  In the case of NS1, they thought about how to use an API to manipulate and retrieve the stuff. It's supposed to be API-driven. Also, NS1 doesn't have hidden features that would not be available over the API. Even their dashboard is built on top of the API. You can leverage all the functionality programmatically. That's what we do.

We don't use their native integrations because we have been customers before these integrations and real-time telemetry existed. Our solution isn't leveraging either of those. Instead, we leveraged their API integration, which was the first thing that existed. Indeed, the API is at the core of how we use Managed DNS. No one goes to the dashboard or manually clicks anything. Everything goes via the API, and we perform hundreds of changes every minute. The API automatically drives everything, so that's the integration we leverage.

We don't use the Pulsar Active Steering feature because we don't have a website. Our solution is being used as an API for other solutions. You can put the Pulsar agent on the website and feed NS1 the information. In our case, we are integrating into third-party sites. We cannot put our JavaScript on their websites for NS1 to provide the data, so we don't.

We've been using NS1 Managed DNS since late 2014, so it's been more than seven years.

NS1 has built advanced solutions for how to stay up during DDoS attacks. I can't recall a situation where NS1 has been unavailable in the last 24 months, and we have very precise monitoring of NS1 availability. Any downtime that might occur would be highly localized and quickly mitigated.

We launched on Thanksgiving and didn't realize it because we were all sitting in Europe. We had to wake up the founders of NS1 with an issue on Thanksgiving Day. They remember it to this day, and every single time it comes up, they always mention that I'm the one who woke them up on Thanksgiving. It was terrible, so I would say you need to plan deployment and keep the NS1 team in the loop because they can help. Their support is excellent. They can help you roll it out. Just don't go crazy and work with them.

NS1 had only four to six people in their company at the time. Today we have 650 employees, but at the time, we had only eight, so NS1 was roughly the same size as us, and we were willing to pay them a lot of money. 

When we first deployed, we flipped the switch, and it didn't work as well as we expected. It wasn't a complete outage, but we had issues in some places with some customers. The NS1 team went out of their way to resolve it on Thanksgiving. We have a post about it on our blog. We called it "Black Thursday."

If you go on our blog and search for "Black Thursday," you can find a post from November 28th, 2014, describing in detail how we shot ourselves in the foot during the transition and how we managed everything. We didn't mention NS1 a lot in the process because we didn't want to. It was completely our fault. 

We migrated, and it was terrible, but they went above and beyond. They even called operators worldwide to tell them to flush their DNS caches because we messed up. It was a great experience but also a massive incident for us. NS1 assigned us a customer success manager and an account manager, and I'm part of the customer advisory board because we are long-term customers. 

Positive

NS1 was the first solution that could express the logic we needed to be hidden behind the records, and we couldn't adapt any other solution to our needs. We tried Dyn and other solutions. Our main requirement was geo-steering, and we wanted to cover every record. We tried to assign the location of that endpoint. Depending on the location of the end-user, we wanted the end-user to be steered to the closest available endpoint. Currently, availability is precisely the issue with the data sources. You have to replicate it repeatedly thousands of times. NS1 simplifies the process.

The other reason we went with NS1 was the sheer expression power of the geo-steering. We struggled with Dyn for weeks, trying to configure their global geolocator to do what we needed. The precision was limited to the continent and a country, but we needed more. NS1 let us geo-coordinate, and NS1 was like, "Okay. We're going to steer it the same." 

The expression capabilities of NS1 and the possibilities of the filter chain were the decisive factors. That's what we wanted to build and what we needed from a DNS. NS1 had it built-in. 

We also previously used Route 53 from AWS. I'm not sure if it improved response times because you can't do much about that. NS1 or AWS manages it, so there is only so much you can complain about availability. It also depends on the level of telemetry that you have. Overall, I would say we saved money by migrating because we could not do what we wanted to do on AWS. On Route 53, we were unable to do it efficiently. We switched to NS1, and they probably saved us between $10 million and $50 million that we would have had to spend building it ourselves.

Setting up Managed DNS was straightforward. When we were migrating, we dumped everything from Route 53 and wrote a small script to import everything into NS1. Then we flipped the main DNS server records. That was our implementation strategy. 

The only preparation needed was to create a bunch of testing records, and we tested it from probes around the world to see how it behaves and performs. Once NS1 was chosen as our go-to solution, it was as simple as that. We eventually exported and pulled the API off Route 53 then pushed it directly to NS1.

Overall, the migration was seamless, but we had an incident in 2014 that we caused ourselves when migrating to NS1. It was our fault, and no one saw it coming. We kind of forget that IPv6 exists, so we created the problem ourselves.

We don't have DNS maintenance work. That's a term that no one in the organization knows, no one understands. If you asked someone in our company, "How much time do you spend on DNS maintenance?" People would say, "What are you talking about? What do you mean by DNS maintenance?" None of my engineers would be able to wrap their heads around it. We don't maintain anything in NS1 aside from the mess we cause with our records and our automation. Otherwise, we don't spend any time maintaining the platform.

If NS1 didn't provide this solution, we would've had to make our own. Once we discovered Managed DNS, we decided there was no way we were building it ourselves. It is now a core service for our product. Without them, I probably would have a massive team today and sink tens of millions of dollars into our custom DNS infrastructure. What's more, we wouldn't be able to do probably 10 percent of what they're doing.

It's fully automated, so it has cut down on manual processes associated with managing DNS by 100 percent. We don't have any manual processes, but otherwise, we would need staff to do something. All the manual processes are eliminated.

I rate NS1 Managed DNS 10 out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing the solution, my advice is to test this stuff and work actively with the NS1 team on the migration. 

My advice would be to talk to NS1, keep them in the loop, and plan it together. Don't try to do it all yourself.