SREcon EMEA 2018 Proposal

Proposal Type
talk	 

Title
How we un-scattered our DNS setup and unlocked new automation options	 

Talk Length
20min	 

Topic Category
4.Automation, deployment, release management and launch management	 

Short Description
Follow me as I try to regain access to a domain, feel the adrenalin of deploying DNS changes using self-developed tooling, get excited about the safety-checks that made our engineer's life easier. Join me in not worrying about DNS anymore (for now).	 
Full Description
eGym owns over a hundred different domains. They were spread over multiple registrars. DNS servers were not under active management and DNS data was neither version controlled nor reviewed. Deployments were risky and rollbacks challenging.
We gained control over the situation by reducing the number of contracts with registrars, selecting a cloud-based DNS service, and convinced our software development teams to manage DNS data in a version-controlled manner. To deploy DNS changes, we build tooling that we open-sourced. Today we are able to deploy much faster and safer. We also have automated checks and implemented some safety measures to prevent the most common mistakes we made in the past. Sharing the mistakes will be part of the presentation, as well as quick outlook to the new automation options we unlocked by having a more robust DNS setup.	 

Brief Outline
I will talk about:
The unfortunate shape the companies domains and the DNS was in.
Measures taken to unify the DNS information.
Processes implemented to get a version-controlled, open to everyone, change-reviewed, and reliably deployed DNS in production.
Monitoring options for domain delegations.
Mistakes I made.
Tooling is all open source.

Optional: 3-minute live demo, possibly onto prod.