From: "Erik E. Fair"  (Time Keeper) <fair@clock.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 95 10:37:25 PDT
To: sameer <tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Persistent Services Needed
Message-ID: <v02110102ac8c96b652cf@[204.179.132.9]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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One way to establish persistent services is to use the DNS for indirection:
register a name for a service (or a set of services), which then point to
servers of those services by a DNS name. If the service needs to move
(hosts, net connections, etc), the only thing that changes is the DNS zone
file and the references to the service through the name stay exactly the
same. Hell, if your service requires no state information or can have
replicated data (e.g. DNS, FTP, WWW), you can use "round robin" techniques
with very low DNS RR TTL's to spread the service load over a bunch of
widely distributed hosts.

The NetBSD gang understand this principle: netbsd.org has several servers
all over the place:

E-mail to netbsd.org is handled at MIT.
www.netbsd.org is served up by WWU.EDU
ftp.netbsd.org is at CMU.

Perhaps Eric Hughes can be prevailed upon to permit "privacy.net" to be
used in this manner.

Erik Fair