
Domain Name Registration and Geo DNS for Route 53 - jeffbarr
http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/route-53-domain-reg-geo-route-price-drop/
======
wise_young_man
This is a pretty interesting move. Google has started offering domain names
[1] in beta, but with my experience with their support I don't plan on using
it.

Pricing is a big part of domains for me and AWS pricing seems a bit high to
me. I'm also not sure on if whois privacy is offered or included? If it was
then the domain price would be fine. I noticed a Route53 zone is included, but
is it included in the price or costs additional? I had a domain with low
traffic and it was $6/year just for DNS hosted zone so if it was included in
the domain price I would probably move all of my domains, though whois privacy
is still a big concern.

For the past few years I've been moving to Hover ($15) and then lately Badger
($10) as it is cheaper, but they both have whois privacy bundled in with the
domain price as I think it is an important service. I previously worked on and
maintained a domain registrar so these hit pretty close to home, but I'm still
not really happy with any solution. It seems Amazon's model of getting pricing
lower didn't really come through with this new offering just comparing to the
current market.

Could hosted email be the next big thing AWS introduces? With as many people
who are frustrated by lack of good options (Google Apps) it could be an
interesting next stage for AWS (App Hosting, Domain Registrations, and Email
Hosting), then I don't know what will happen to traditional hosting providers,
but I think they will be trying to figure out how to stay relevant.

[1]: [http://google.com/domains](http://google.com/domains)

~~~
colmmacc
whois protection is included;

[http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-
new/2014/07/31/amazon-...](http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-
new/2014/07/31/amazon-route-53-announces-domain-name-registration-geo-routing-
and-lower-pricing/)

"When you purchase new domains via Route 53, the service will automatically
configure a Hosted Zone for each domain and ensure the privacy of your WHOIS
record at no additional charge".

~~~
mgkimsal
configuring the hosted zone... but do you get charged for it as well? i can't
tell by that language.

EDIT: just tried to set one up - it looks like it's still an extra charge,
so.. $12 for a .com plus minimum $6/year $18/year - kinda high if you don't
need all the flexibility of the amazon platform. I don't see a lot of domain
parkers taking them up on this.

~~~
agwa
"If you don't want to use your domain right now, you can delete the hosted
zone; if you delete it within 48 hours of registering the domain, there won't
be any charge for the hosted zone on your AWS bill"

Source:
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/reg...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/registrar.html#domain-
register)

------
ceejayoz
Now if they'd only offer the ability to automatically provision SSL
certificates (and add them to ELBs) for the domains.

~~~
gtaylor
I sure hope so. You've got to figure that they'd undercut the ever living crap
out of the other CAs, too.

~~~
iancarroll
I doubt much would change, given Gandi (who supplies this) already gives out
certificates.

Wildcards and/or unlimited certificates would certainly blow any other
offering out of the water, though.

------
aseidl
It looks like prices are around the bulk D or E rates from Gandi (their
upstream registrar). One notable exception is .io, which is currently $78 on
AWS, but only $39 from Gandi (A rate).

Edit: Pricing list is available at:
[https://d32ze2gidvkk54.cloudfront.net/Amazon_Route_53_Domain...](https://d32ze2gidvkk54.cloudfront.net/Amazon_Route_53_Domain_Registration_Pricing_20140731.pdf)

~~~
ehPReth
Gandi's E rates:
[https://www.gandi.net/domain/price/info?grid=E](https://www.gandi.net/domain/price/info?grid=E)

------
flyt
Congrats to Gandi for being the underlying registrar that Amazon chose for the
registration service!
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/reg...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/registrar.html)

~~~
cmder
Might as well just register domains at Gandi.

~~~
ceejayoz
For now, yes. In time, maybe not, as they add integrations into other bits
like provisioning SSL for ELBs.

------
opendais
GeoDNS actually makes Route 53 usable for me since I don't use AWS for
hosting. Yay!

~~~
stevekemp
You don't necessarily need to use it though.

(I wrap around route53 at [http://dns-api.com/](http://dns-api.com/) and don't
yet support any kind of GeoDNS, or health-checks. They're not things users
seem to want.)

~~~
opendais
Steve, it is a bit condescending to imply I don't know what I need for my use
case.

~~~
stevekemp
Sorry that wasn't my intention :(

~~~
opendais
I misunderstood what you meant then. My mistake.

------
mthoms
Does this permit automated re-selling to users? I mean aside from the
high(ish) price?

Edit: There does appear to be an API but it's still not clear if you can
register on behalf of another individual...

------
jasonkester
Nice. The final piece of the puzzle that I didn't even realize was missing
until reading this announcement.

When I spin up a new idea, step one is to register the domain with my normal
$7/year registrar. But from that point forward it's all AWS except for the
step of manually copying back the nameservers from Route 53.

Sure, this is a bit more expensive but it's a no brainer from a lot of
perspectives. First, it's Amazon so there's no fear of flakines (even of the
whimsical negligent sort that Google specializes in). They're certainly going
to be more reliable than the guys I'm with now (not because my guys aren't
reliable; they're just not Amazon). And naturally, there's the bonus of having
everything in one place and tied together.

But mostly there's the silly psychological reason: I have to manually renew a
few of my domains every once in a while, sending off my card details for a few
hundred more of my precious dollars and feeling the pain. With Amazon it'd be
completely different. They're already pulling a grand or so out of my account
every month. It's just business expenses, so a bit extra for domains can get
nicely lost in the noise.

I get the feeling I might be doing a bunch of copy/pasting in the near future.
Let's hope they have a good migration tool.

~~~
nnx
> the final piece of the puzzle

One piece is still missing: SSL certificates from AWS.

------
driverdan
Never register your domain with the same company / account you have your
hosting under. If you keep them independent and something catastrophic happens
to your servers you'll still be able point the domain(s) somewhere else. If
AWS goes down and takes the control panel with it you won't be able to do
anything with your domain.

~~~
colmmacc
Unfortunately the TTL settings on top-level zones are less than friendly if
your goal is to withstand a DNS provider outage by changing the registration.
The TTLs on NS records in the ".com" zone are two days long. So when you log
in to your registrar of choice and change the delegation, it's still going to
be two days before all resolvers are using your new choice. You can improve
things for most resolvers, by lowering the NS TTLs in your child-zone (though
few do), but about 10% of resolvers are "parent-centric" and you'll just have
to wait the two days.

Using multiple providers, but using no more than two authoritative nameservers
from each provider [1], is probably the way to go if your goal is to withstand
a full-provider DNS outage. Unfortunately when you do that, you have to also
consider that if DNS is your tool for handling day-to-day problems like web-
server failures; then every time you need to make a DNS change, you need all
of your providers to reflect it reliably and quickly.

Or put another way; using multiple providers can lower your day to day
availability, because of the increased probability that at least one of your
providers is slow to make changes when you need it.

Full disclosure: I work on Route 53.

[1] Most resolvers will try 3 different name servers before giving up, so if
you have 3 or more from any one provider in can be ineffective.

------
brianbreslin
So in essence could one programmatically register domains and then kite them
all automatically using their API? Kiting is when squatters buy domains look
at traffic over a few days and drop the domain before the 4 day refund period
is over.

------
moonlighter
This is a great option for anyone who's planning to use Route53 for DNS
anyway, and also for no other reason than having a clean and easy way to just
buy domains without all up-sell crap you get from GoDaddy et al.

