Tech giant Oracle announced today that it has acquired domain name service (DNS) provider Dyn for an undisclosed amount in a move that the company said would help expand its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings. Oracle said the acquisition was a natural expansion of its existing cloud computing platform, and one that will help customers optimize infrastructure costs, maximize application and Web site revenue, and manage risk.
“Oracle cloud customers will have unique access to Internet performance information that will help them optimize infrastructure costs, maximize application and Web site-driven revenue, and manage risk,” said Kyle York, Dyn’s chief strategy officer, said in a statement. “We are excited to join Oracle and bring even more value to our customers as part of Oracle’s cloud computing platform.”
Yes, that Dyn
The name Dyn might sound familiar. The DNS provider was hit with a massive distributed denial of service attack last month that shut down major portions of the Internet, including popular sites such as Twitter and Netflix. Although small, the New Hampshire-based company is responsible for providing DNS service for much of the U.S. Internet.
But beyond its role as a DNS provider, Dyn also serves more than 3,500 enterprise clients, providing them with the ability to monitor, control, and optimize Internet applications and cloud services to deliver faster access, reduced page load times, and higher end-user satisfaction. Adding Dyn’s capabilities will give Oracle the ability to offer customers a one-stop shop for IaaS and PaaS solutions, the company said.
“Oracle already offers enterprise-class IaaS and PaaS for companies building and running Internet applications and cloud services,” said Thomas Kurian, president, product development, Oracle. “Dyn’s immensely scalable and global DNS is a critical core component and a natural extension to our cloud computing platform.”
The company has not revealed the cost of the acquisition, although reports in the media indicate the price tag was north of $600 million.
Improving Cloud Services
For Oracle, the acquisition achieves a number of goals for its various cloud services initiatives. Among them is the need to meet the service expectations of high-end users for applications tailored to their requirements. Dyn will also help Oracle build more responsive applications for Internet of Things services.
Those applications will need to be run on a set of infrastructure services that are both integrated with each other and capable of scaling on a global level. Oracle said that by helping it build a more integrated cloud computing platform, the Dyn acquisition will address all of those challenges.
In the Dyn network, Oracle is getting its hands on more than 10 years of Internet traffic history, which the company said will help provide critical visibility into cloud and public Internet resources. Dyn also collects 240 billion data points on Internet traffic every day, which will help Oracle create a global map of the state of the Internet.
Dyn also provides Oracle with the technology to route Internet traffic in real time to optimize network availability, security and performance for enterprise clients.
