Internet Routing and DNS Voodoo in the Enterprises

This paper describes the process used to transition from a legacy intranet to a modern Internet access architecture. During the period of the Lucent/AT&T/NCR tri-vestiture, much care was given to re-engineer and re-design Lucent's data networking infrastructure with a modern and flexible design. As a part of this re-structuring, the existing Internet access architecture was viewed as archaic and in desperate need of redesign. The legacy intranet was isolated from the Internet in many ways including separate root name servers, a complete lack of routing information to or from the Internet, and everything was passed through home-grown application-layer proxy software. To remedy this, a project was created to provide transparent proxyless access to Internet hosts and applications. This project entailed designing a routing architecture that provided connectivity, redundancy, and manageability. In addition to routing issues, Lucent's DNS infrastructure would also need a redesign to handle new responsibilities given to it.