Q-DNS: Optimized Network Lookup for Dual Stack Devices

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a primary identification mechanism for every application across the Internet. Its main functionality is to provide name resolution service by mapping a domain name to an IP address. With the recent transition to IPv6, devices are now capable of interacting with both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. However, this increases the DNS resolution time and causes additional DNS traffic. This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of IPv4 only device with dual stack device. The results show that dual stack device takes more time in DNS resolution. It also increases DNS traffic by sending more requests when compared to IPv4 only device. Therefore, we propose a DNS resolution time reduction technique, named Q-DNS. This approach reduces the number of queries generated to handle a given DNS resolution and decreases both DNS traffic and DNS latency. Q-DNS is client only solution and can be easily deployed across any platform. In this paper, we show that Q-DNS, when implemented on a commercially ready Samsung Galaxy S7 running Android N, significantly improves the DNS Latency by 30% to 60%.