VeriSign adds Australia to Internet server network

Ben Armstrong, naming and directory services manager VeriSign Asia Pacific, told ZDNet Australia that the new cluster, which went live over the weekend, are used by computers when they first access Web sites with a .com or .net URL.

"If a computer has never been used to access a particular Web site, the first time the user types in the Web address, the computer would go and find the DNS [domain name server] for ZDNet.com [from a VeriSign Internet server] and that would point them to another server that would bring back the content," said Armstrong.

According to Armstrong, before the Australian Internet server cluster went live, computers looking to resolve a .com or .net URL would have to visit an Internet server in Singapore or the United States, which would make the process slightly slower.

"If you want to access a .com or .net Web site from Australia that should be much faster because both resolutions can be done locally, so it will not have to go out to Singapore or the US, it can be done locally," said Armstrong.

Armstrong admitted that the new Internet servers have been deployed to expand capacity and ensure that as domestic Internet usage increases, requests for URL resolution from Australia will not be unduly delayed.

"Five years ago there wasn't much of this. As there was an increasing amount of data put onto the Internet. A lot of business is done by e-mails and we are moving on to services that require large volumes of data… We are very reliant now for the Internet to be up," he added.