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PowerDNS Recursor Plexus

No Cold Starts.
No Performance Drop.
Just Stable DNS.

Resolver restarts happen — after updates, configuration changes, or maintenance.

But every restart traditionally means lost cache, lost intelligence, and a costly warm-up phase.
In large-scale environments, these warm-up cycles quickly translate into measurable operational impact. 

PowerDNS Recursor Plexus changes that.

As an add-on for PowerDNS Recursor, Plexus preserves and shares critical runtime state across Recursor instances using NATS-powered messaging.

  • Lower latency from the first query
  • Reduced upstream DNS traffic
  • Stable performance, even during maintenance

Resolver Cache Sharing

PowerDNS Recursor Plexus instantly helps to repopulate the record cache of a newly started Recursor. By securely retrieving cache data from active peers, it prevents the resolver from starting with an empty cache. This eliminates the need to re-perform recursive lookups to rebuild record cache entries and DNSSEC cache data. 

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Authoritative Intelligence Sharing

Newly started PowerDNS Recursors are immediately bootstraped with authoritative server performance intelligence from running peers. PowerDNS Recursor Plexus distributes a measured authoritative NS speed table, including information about response times, timeout history, NS rankings, and RTT values. This ensures that restarted resolvers immediately prefer the fastest and most reliable authoritative servers – without having to relearn performance characteristics from scratch. 

A PowerDNS Recursor Mesh

PowerDNS Recursor Plexus establishes a mesh network between individual PowerDNS Recursor instances. Using the lightweight and robust NATS messaging system, Plexus enables asynchronous state synchronization without requiring direct, real-time sender-receiver relationships. The result is a scalable, resilient architecture designed for modern DNS environments. 

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PowerDNS Recursor Plexus Benefits at a Glance

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Seamless state synchronization between PowerDNS Recursor instances powered by NATS messaging.

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Eliminates costly warm-up phases by preserving and restoring cache intelligence.

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Instant access to authoritative server performance insights, including response characteristics.

Plexus - low latencx

Delivers consistently low latency, fewer timeouts, and highly stable DNS performance - even after restarts.

Learn how PowerDNS Recursor Plexus can stabilize DNS performance in your environment.