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IBM NS1 Connect Managed DNS offers DNS management and traffic steering for optimized performance. Enhance your DNS Strategy today.
IBM NS1 Connect is a managed authoritative DNS and traffic steering service for AWS, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments, operating on a global anycast network with 26 PoPs across 6 continents and a 100% uptime SLA for DNS resolution, using real-time data from Amazon CloudWatch and application health signals.
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Overview
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Overview of IBM NS1 Connect Managed DNS
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What is Traffic Steering
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Simplify HTTPS Management
IBM NS1 Connect is a managed authoritative DNS and traffic steering service for applications deployed across AWS, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments. The service operates on a global anycast network spanning 26 points of presence (PoPs) across 6 continents and provides a 100% uptime SLA for DNS resolution.
It integrates with AWS services including Amazon EC2, Amazon EKS, Elastic Load Balancing (ALB/NLB), Amazon CloudFront, AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudWatch.
NS1 Connect enables DNS-based traffic routing using real-time data such as Real user Metrics (RUM), third party QoE data, CloudWatch metrics, health checks, latency, geographic location, and application performance signals.
The platform supports primary and secondary DNS configurations across AWS, other cloud providers, and on-premises infrastructure.
Key Capabilities
Available and Adaptable
- Global anycast DNS network with 26 PoPs across 6 continents for distributed query handling - 100% uptime SLA for DNS resolution.
- Traffic steering using real-time metrics, health checks, latency, and RUM data.
- Multi-cloud and multi-CDN routing across AWS, other cloud providers, and on-prem environments.
Agile and Secure
- API-First integration with infrstructure-as-a-service (Kubernetes, Ansible, Piulimi) Kubernetes ExternalDNS, AWS services.
- Observability integrations including Amazon CloudWatch, Datadog, Splunk, AppDynamics, Catchpoint, ThousandEyes, Pingdom.
- Security features including DNSSEC, TSIG, IP allow-listing, RBAC, SAML/SSO, AWS IAM read-only integration.
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification. SOC 2 Type II available via AWS Vendor Insights.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does NS1 Connect integrate with Amazon Route 53?
AWS and IBM offer two complementary architecture patterns that help customers expand their use of Amazon Route 53 while meeting advanced performance and resiliency requirements. With IBM Cloud Sync (an optional add-on), zones, records, traffic-steering metadata, and health checks synchronize bidirectionally between NS1 Connect and Route 53 without DNS zone-transfer (XFR). Cloud Sync also backs up NS1 Connect DNS configurations to a customer-owned Amazon S3 bucket for fast restore.
Which AWS services are used for traffic steering decisions?
NS1 Connect ingests Amazon CloudWatch metrics directly into Filter Chains, so DNS answers reflect the live health and performance of Amazon EKS, EC2, ELB, CloudFront, and other AWS resources. In addition, the Filter Chain engine ingests telemetry from third-party observability and RUM providers (Datadog, Catchpoint, ThousandEyes, AppDynamics), enabling consistent multi-cloud and multi-provider decisioning. Cloud Sync backs up NS1 Connect DNS configurations to a customer-owned Amazon S3 bucket.
What scale does the service support?
Service tiers support query volumes from tens of millions per month to custom volumes at higher scales. NS1 Essentials handles 30-80M queries/month; NS1 Standard handles 50M-1B queries/month; NS1 Premium is custom-priced and scales beyond 1B/month.
Can NS1 Connect be used as primary or secondary DNS?
Yes. It can function as either a primary authoritative DNS provider or as a secondary provider.
What security features are included?
The platform is ISO 27001 certificatied with SOC 2 Type II available on request. It supports DNSSEC, TSIG, IP allow-listing, RBAC, SAML/SSO authentication and AWS IAM integration.
Does NS1 Connect support multi-CDN routing?
Yes. It can route traffic across Amazon CloudFront and third-party CDNs based on performance using real-time RUM, CloudWatch, Catchpoint and ThousandEyes signals, including cost-aware and contract-aware shaping.
Does NS1 support multi-cloud and hybrid environments?
Yes. Traffic routing policies can be applied across AWS, other public clouds, and on-premises infrastructure. Customers commonly run NS1 Connect as the global DNS decisioning layer in front of workloads spanning multiple providers, with per-zone or per-record steering policies. Where Amazon Route 53 is also in use, IBM Cloud Sync (optional add-on) keeps zones, records, and steering metadata aligned bidirectionally without DNS zone-transfer (XFR).
How does it fit DevOps workflows?
NS1 Connect provides API access and integrates with Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, and Kubernetes ExternalDNS integration for automatic DNS record management; webhooks and APIs for CI/CD pipelines.
Is a free trial available?
Yes. A 30-day free trial is available through AWS Marketplace.
Highlights
- Global anycast network: Primary and secondary DNS built with a fully redundant architecture at 26 locations to meet a 100% uptime SLA.
- Real-time DNS traffic steering using Real User Metrics (RUM), Amazon CloudWatch metrics, third party QoE data, latency, and health checks.
- DevOps ready integrations with EC2, EKS, ALB/NLB, CloudFront, Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, Global Accelerator, Datadog, Splunk, ThousandEyes.
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Dimension | Description | Cost/12 months |
|---|---|---|
Essentials | Includes 30M queries 1000 records 1 Filter Chain 2 Monitors | $1,188.00 |
Essentials with Route 53 DNS syncronization | Includes 50M queries per month, 1000 records, 1 Traffic Steering Filter Chain, 2 Monitors, 1 Cloud Sync Connection | $3,288.00 |
Essentials Large Bundle | Includes 80M queries 1000 records 1 Filter Chain 2 Monitors | $4,188.00 |
Standard-50 | 50M Queries, 1000 Records, 1 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 2 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore | $4,188.00 |
Standard-150 | 150M Queries, 1000 Records, 3 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 7 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore | $9,426.00 |
Standard-250 with Route 53 DNS syncronization | Includes 250M Queries per month, 2000 Records, 25 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 25 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore, 1 Cloud Sync Connection | $22,006.80 |
Standard-500 | 500M Queries, 5000 Records, 50 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 50 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore | $31,096.80 |
Standard-1000 | 1Bn Queries, 10000 Records, 100 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 100 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore | $46,546.80 |
Standard-1000 with Route 53 DNS syncronization | Includes 1Bn Queries per month, 10000 Records, 100 Traffic Steering Filter Chains, 100 Monitors, 50 HTTPS Redirects, Spike Protection, Zone Backup/Restore, 1 Cloud Sync Connection | $47,446.80 |
Dimension | Description | Cost/unit |
|---|---|---|
Overage Rate Total Queries (Requests) | Overage Rate Total Queries (Requests) | $50.00 |
Overage Rate DNS Records | Overage Rate DNS Records | $75.00 |
Overage Rate Filter Chains (Resource Units) | Overage Rate Filter Chains (Resource Units) | $103.50 |
Overage Rate Monitors (Jobs) | Overage Rate Monitors (Jobs) | $3.45 |
Overage Rate China Requests | Overage Rate China Requests | $172.00 |
Steering Standard Interaction Overage | Steering Standard Interaction Overage | $20.39 |
GSLB Standard Interaction Overage | GSLB Standard Interaction Overage | $20.39 |
Steering Advanced Interaction Overage | Steering Advanced Interaction Overage | $32.39 |
GSLB Advanced Interaction Overage | GSLB Advanced Interaction Overage | $32.39 |
Enterprise Request Overage | Enterprise Request Overage | $8.27 |
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AI generated from product descriptions
Global Anycast Network Infrastructure
Operates on a global anycast network with 26 points of presence (PoPs) across 6 continents, providing fully redundant architecture with 100% uptime SLA for DNS resolution.
Real-time Traffic Steering
Enables DNS-based traffic routing using real-time data including Real User Metrics (RUM), Amazon CloudWatch metrics, third-party QoE data, latency measurements, health checks, and application performance signals.
Multi-cloud and Hybrid Environment Support
Supports primary and secondary DNS configurations across AWS, other cloud providers, and on-premises infrastructure with multi-CDN routing capabilities.
API-First Infrastructure Integration
Provides API-first integration with infrastructure-as-code tools including Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, Kubernetes ExternalDNS, and CI/CD pipeline webhooks for automated DNS record management.
Security and Compliance Features
Implements DNSSEC, TSIG, IP allow-listing, RBAC, SAML/SSO authentication, AWS IAM integration, ISO/IEC 27001 certification, and SOC 2 Type II compliance.
AI-Powered Data Management
F5 AI Data Fabric enables generation of insights, management, and governance for data from different applications and products across multiple data lakes and data sources.
Multi-Cloud Network Connectivity
Global hub-and-spoke transit orchestration for connecting all cloud properties including public, private, network and edge clouds.
Integrated Security Stack
Unified software stack combining router, load balancer, network firewall, web application firewall (WAF), API security and API gateway with single management portal.
Layer 3-7 DDoS Protection
L3-L7 DDoS defense capabilities for protecting applications and APIs deployed across distributed environments.
Kubernetes Native Integration
Ingress/Egress Kubernetes Controller support for managing Kubernetes-based workloads with Layer 7 application and API advertising across clouds.
Zone Configuration
Support for Primary zone, Secondary zone, Active Directory integrated zone, and stub zones
DNS Policy Management
DNS policies for Query Resolution, Recursion, Zone Transfer, and Traffic Management
Administration Tools
Remote administration tools for DNS and extended Windows PowerShell support with required modules
Protocol Support
DNS resolution over TCP and UDP on port 53 with support for unknown record types
Standard contract
No
No
No
Customer reviews
Sanchit Makkar
Intelligent global traffic steering has improved reliability and reduced latency for users
Reviewed on Sep 28, 2026
Review provided by PeerSpot
What is our primary use case?
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.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using IBM NS1 Connect for the last two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
IBM NS1 Connect is highly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for IBM NS1 Connect is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use any other solution aside from IBM NS1 Connect.
What was our ROI?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate any other options before choosing IBM NS1 Connect.
What other advice do I have?
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.
SHREYA B.
User-Friendly, High-Performance DNS—But Setup Takes Some Learning
Reviewed on Aug 22, 2026
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
What I like most about IBM NS1 Connect is its user-friendly interface, reliable DNS management, strong performance, and its ability to efficiently monitor and manage DNS traffic. Overall, it makes day-to-day DNS operations simpler and much more manageable.
What do you dislike about the product?
The initial setup and configuration can feel a bit complex for new users, and some of the more advanced features may require extra learning or technical know-how. Clearer, more guided documentation and simpler configuration options would help streamline the process and improve the overall user experience.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
IBM NS1 Connect simplifies DNS management by offering centralized control, reliable traffic routing, and clearer visibility into DNS performance. With these capabilities, it reduces manual effort, improves availability, and helps me respond more efficiently when DNS-related issues come up.
Rushikesh S.
Intelligent Traffic Steering and API-First DNS Automation with IBM NS1 Connect
Reviewed on Aug 20, 2026
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
What I like most about IBM NS1 Connect is its intelligent traffic-steering capability. It goes beyond traditional DNS by using real-time performance, availability, and geographic data to route users to the best-performing endpoint. I also appreciate its API-first approach, which makes it straightforward to integrate with DevOps and infrastructure-as-code workflows, and to automate DNS management.
What do you dislike about the product?
The main area I’d improve is the learning curve for advanced configurations. Features like Filter Chains and traffic-steering policies are powerful, but they can take time to fully understand and set up effectively, especially for new users. A more intuitive UI, along with clearer, beginner-friendly examples, would make onboarding smoother and help users get value faster.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
For me, the main benefit is improved application reliability and performance. It provides better visibility into DNS and traffic behavior while making it easier to automate and manage traffic across distributed infrastructure.
Anonymous
Enhances DNS Management with Flexibility and Control
Reviewed on Aug 20, 2026
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
I like that IBM NS1 Connect gives me good control over DNS and traffic without making things too complicated. It helps me manage DNS and traffic routing without having to handle things manually, making it easy to control where traffic goes, maintain availability, and quickly adjust things when there are changes. This provides me with more flexibility in how traffic is handled and makes DNS management feel easier to manage. The initial setup was pretty easy, and once it was configured, it was easy to manage. Overall, it saves time and offers better control over traffic.
What do you dislike about the product?
Honestly, I think the main thing that could be better is the ease of use. It has a lot of features, but it takes time to understand everything and how to use the more advanced options. A simpler interface and better guidance would make it easier, especially for someone who doesn't work with DNS stuff every day. Other than that, I think it's good.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use IBM NS1 Connect for DNS management and traffic routing, improving reliability and performance. It solves manual DNS handling, saving time with better control and flexibility over traffic, making routing easy and management flexible.
Julio M.
AI-Powered Performance That Delivers
Reviewed on Aug 19, 2026
Review provided by G2
What do you like best about the product?
The software because use IA for perfomance.
What do you dislike about the product?
The analytics but you guys can improve it
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The storage