Alibaba Cloud DNS:Instance FAQ

Paid editions provide higher quality and more comprehensive guarantees. The advantages include the following:

• Service quality: Paid editions include a 100% Service-Level Agreement (SLA) guarantee and expert technical support to ensure stability and fast problem resolution. The Free Edition does not offer an availability guarantee or technical support.

• Enhanced features:

  • Support for more subdomain levels and finer-grained TTL settings to increase DNS resolution flexibility.

  • Smart DNS resolution based on ISP, cloud provider, and region to direct users to the optimal path.

  • Higher capacity for Server Load Balancer IP addresses to meet complex traffic demands.

  • DNSSEC support and request volume statistics to enhance security and data analytics capabilities.

• Advanced features (Enterprise and Ultimate Editions):

  • Intelligent parsing provides more refined results.

  • DNS record backup and Secondary DNS support to further improve availability and security.

For more information, see Version comparison.

Answer: If you have enabled public network authoritative DNS traffic analysis for your domain and want to reduce the associated costs:

• Method 1: Purchase an Alibaba Cloud DNS Advanced Service (Data Transfer Plan)

• Method 2: Adjust the TTL value of your DNS records. A higher TTL value increases the duration that DNS resolution results are cached on local DNS servers. This reduces the number of requests to the authoritative DNS server and lowers your costs.

  Warning

  Before you proceed, read How to configure TTL to understand the effects of changing the TTL value.

• Method 3: Apply for a business discount. If Method 1 and Method 2 do not solve your problem, contact us on DingTalk for a consultation. DingTalk ID: behladu.

1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console for public authoritative DNS.

2. Click Instance > Batch Auto-renewal.

3. In the filter bar, set Expires At to All, Product Name to Alibaba Cloud DNS (Subscription), and Region to All Regions. On the Manual Renewal tab, select the instances for which you want to enable auto-renewal, and then click Enable Auto-renewal.

   For the auto-renewal payment deduction time, see the Expiration Countdown in the following figure.

If you are using the Free Edition of Alibaba Cloud DNS and want to upgrade to a paid edition, follow the instructions below. The upgrade process is seamless and does not affect your existing DNS records. The procedure varies depending on your domain name registrar:

• Domain name registered with Alibaba Cloud: After the instance is successfully upgraded, Alibaba Cloud DNS attempts to automatically update the DNS server names for your domain name. However, if the domain name has an update lock enabled or if the automatic update fails due to network issues, you must first disable the update lock and then manually change the DNS server addresses. For more information, see Modify the DNS servers of a domain name.

• Domain name not registered with Alibaba Cloud: You must go to your domain name registrar's website to change the DNS server names to the ones allocated by Alibaba Cloud DNS.

When you upgrade from one paid edition to a higher one, Alibaba Cloud DNS may allocate new DNS server names that differ from your previous ones. This does not affect domain name resolution because all paid editions of Alibaba Cloud DNS use the same cluster: vip(1-8).alidns.com. You can also change the DNS servers to the newly allocated names at your domain name registrar. This change will not affect the availability of your DNS resolution. For specific steps, see Modify the DNS servers of a domain name.

Paid editions of Alibaba Cloud DNS do not support downgrades from a higher edition to a lower one. For example, you cannot downgrade from the Ultimate Edition to the Personal Edition.

• To use a lower-edition instance for your domain name, see Change the instance bound to a domain name.

• To switch your domain name from a paid instance to the Free Edition, see Unbind an instance from a domain name.

Paid editions of Alibaba Cloud DNS do not support downgrades. Switching a domain name from a paid instance to the Free Edition typically occurs when you unbind the instance or when the instance expires and automatically switches to the Free Edition. The failure may be caused by the following reasons:

• If your domain name is registered and managed with Alibaba Cloud, the automatic switchover usually fails because an update lock is enabled for the domain name. You can perform a WHOIS query. If the domain status shows "update prohibited by registrar", see Update lock to disable the lock. Then, see Modify the DNS servers of a domain name to change the DNS server names to the ones allocated by Alibaba Cloud DNS for the Free Edition.

• Alibaba Cloud DNS does not support automatic DNS server switchover for domain names not registered with Alibaba Cloud. If your domain name is registered and managed by a third-party registrar, you must manually change the DNS servers to the Free Edition DNS servers allocated by Alibaba Cloud DNS at your registrar's website.

Yes, but you must complete the switch as soon as possible (no later than seven days after the instance expires). Otherwise, the instance will be released, which will interrupt your DNS resolution. In addition, due to functional differences between the paid and free editions, some DNS records may be paused or certain features may become unavailable. For solutions and detailed steps, see Instance expiration and renewal.

Yes. You can unsubscribe from resources that are in use or cancel a renewal period. For resources that are in use, Alibaba Cloud DNS instances currently support only partial refunds. For more information, see Unsubscribe from an instance.

After a paid Alibaba Cloud DNS instance expires, its DNS data is retained for 7 days. If you renew the instance within these 7 days, your DNS resolution will not be affected. If you do not renew the instance within 7 days of expiration, the instance is released. To avoid DNS resolution failures after the instance is released, follow these instructions:

• Domain names registered with Alibaba Cloud: The DNS data is automatically downgraded to the Alibaba Cloud DNS Free Edition cluster. DNS records that use features exclusive to paid editions are paused. During the downgrade, if an update lock is enabled for the domain name (a WHOIS query will show the domain status as "update prohibited by registrar") or a network timeout occurs, the automatic downgrade will fail. This will cause DNS service interruptions. You must then manually go to the domain name console and change the DNS servers to the Free Edition servers. You can obtain the Free Edition DNS server names by logging on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console.

• Domain names not registered with Alibaba Cloud: Your DNS resolution will be affected. Change the domain's DNS servers to the Alibaba Cloud DNS Free Edition servers.

For more information, see Instance expiration and renewal.