UltraDNS Expands Managed DNS Offerings with Directional DNS and Secondary DNS Services

New Services Geared Toward Businesses Seeking Increased Reliability, Efficiency, and Security Of Web Presence

SAN MATEO, Calif. November 27, 2001 -- UltraDNS™ Corporation, today announced the availability of two new services on its global Domain Name Server (DNS) network, Directional DNS™ and Secondary DNS. The new services offer significant advantages for businesses seeking to improve the performance of their online presence and ensure customer retention, particularly during the spikes in Internet traffic that frequently occur during the holiday season.

As a value-added component of UltraDNS's exclusive Managed DNS ServiceTM, Directional DNS is an industry-first solution for optimizing network efficiency across four geographic zones. This unique network balancing capability creates a customized query response by directing traffic to specific locations from each zone of the company's global mesh of replicated fail-safe servers. This is done at a far lower cost than traditional solutions because it operates on UltraDNS's own network. Directional DNS is easy to deploy and use with a unified web-enabled user interface and the performance benefits include the elimination of dropped connections, site failure prevention, more responsive site performance and exceptional user experience.

Industry research group Gartner predicts that online shoppers will spend $25.3 billion worldwide this holiday season, up 39 percent from a year ago. In North America alone, the sales jump is expected to be $11.9 billion, an increase of 30 percent from the 2000 holiday season. With the quick and easy deployment of Directional DNS and Secondary DNS, UltraDNS customers will be able to take advantage of both new services in time to address their expected holiday needs.

"Directional DNS offers an industry-first, viable network balancing alternative for companies that want to improve their Web presence without the burden of deploying and running their own large, costly systems," said Ray Stephens, vice president marketing of UltraDNS. "By expanding our Managed DNS Service, we're continuing to fulfill our commitment to provide the most redundant and reliable DNS network available."

Better Back-Up
Secondary DNS allows customers to configure their secondary DNS to point to UltraDNS's network to ensure added reliability, redundancy, and security. Secondary DNS is an alternative for companies that need to retain their DNS in-house, as well as those organizations considering the move to UltraDNS's Managed DNS Service. A study performed by Keynote Systems measuring more than 372 million connection attempts to 12,000 hosts during a four-week period found that 29 percent of Web page download attempts fail due to "DNS Lookup Failure," the second-most common cause.

"With increased security concerns and stringent service level agreement requirements for 100 percent uptime, companies will welcome the chance to beef up the security and availability of their Web sites without having to make a large investment," Stephens added. "Secondary DNS allows organizations to take full advantage of the UltraDNS network without having to install any software or release management of their DNS - for total site availability and total control."

UltraDNS's proprietary directory infrastructure platform eliminates the risk of hacks and other site exploitation made possible by inherent security vulnerabilities in BIND, the common Internet directory technology used by the majority of the sites on the Web. BIND is unable to meet the demanding reliability, performance, scalability and manageability requirements of e-businesses and their service providers, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost customers, revenue and productivity every year.

Directional DNS and Secondary DNS are currently available. For more information about Directional DNS please visit www.neustarultraservices.biz, and for Secondary DNS please visit www.secondarydns.com.

About UltraDNS
Based in San Mateo, Calif., UltraDNS Corporation is the leading Directory Infrastructure Services Provider (DISP), delivering solutions that enhance the reliability and performance of the world's largest directories and the mission-critical applications that access them. UltraDNS offers highly scalable solutions - both as a managed services provider and as a developer of custom infrastructure solutions - built on its unique Directory Services Platform and proprietary, patented technologies. The company operates its own global, fail-safe server network, which supports the UltraDNS Managed DNS Service, the industry's first 100 percent reliable Domain Name System (DNS) name/IP address resolution service, backed by a full service level (SLA) guarantee. UltraDNS infrastructure services, such as Managed DNS, address the growing need for quick, reliable response to directory queries in today's converging Internet/telecom environment. By connecting a user's information request to the proper directory and assuring a quick, accurate response, UltraDNS plays a key enabling role in delivering content, information and data to users when, where and on whatever device they choose. The company was founded in 1999 and is funded by Reuters Group PLC, Vantage Point Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Comdisco. Customers include .Name, Oracle, MSN Hotmail, Corio, Handspring, and Petco. For more information, visit www.neustarultraservices.biz.

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