Route 53

Health Checks
Steven Moran
TRAINING ARCHITECT
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Health Checks

• Monitor resource health.

• Provide notification of
status change.

• Used for DNS failover.

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Health Check Types

• Endpoint
• Tests response from a
single endpoint.
• Other health checks
• One parent-check to many
child-checks.
• Parent check is healthy if X
child-checks are healthy.
• CloudWatch alarms
• Monitors data stream to
existing alarm.
• Check is healthy if alarm
status is OK.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Health Checks

• Tests specific endpoints for

responsiveness.

• Define target endpoints by:

• IP address or domain name
• Protocol used for check
• HTTP
• HTTPS
• TCP
• Port number
• Optional file path for
HTTP/HTTPS checks
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Endpoint Health Checks

Tests are performed by health checkers in various AWS regions.

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Health Checks

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Endpoint Health Checks

Checks are sent to the endpoint every 10 or 30 seconds.

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Health Checks

A check fails if there is no response within:

• 4 seconds (HTTP/HTTPS) • 10 seconds (TCP)

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Endpoint Health Checks

Each health checker considers the endpoint unhealthy if a

configured number of consecutive checks fail.

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ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Health Checks

Each health checker considers the endpoint unhealthy if a

configured number of consecutive checks fail.

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ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Health Checks

If less than 18% of the checkers consider the endpoint unhealthy,

Route 53 considers the endpoint unhealthy.

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Creating Endpoint Health Checks

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Creating Endpoint Health Checks

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Creating Endpoint Health Checks

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Using Health Checks and DNS Failover

• Route 53 will not reply

with:
• Values from records
associated with a failed
health check.
• Optional for most routing
policy types.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Using Health Checks and DNS Failover

• Route 53 will not reply

with:
• Values from records
associated with a failed
health check.
• Optional for most routing
policy types.
• Required for primary failover.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Using Health Checks and DNS Failover

• Route 53 will not reply

with:
• Values from records
associated with a failed
health check.
• Optional for most routing
policy types.
• Required for primary failover.
• Not available for simple
routing.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Using Health Checks and DNS Failover

• Route 53 will not reply

with:
• Values from records
associated with a failed
health check.
• Optional for most routing
policy types.
• Required for primary failover.
• Not available for simple
routing.
• IP addresses from failed
endpoint IP-address health
checks.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Using Health Checks and DNS Failover

• Failover requires configuring

available alternatives.
• Additional record values.
• Additional records.

• Health checks for alias

records are unnecessary.
• Intrinsically redundant
infrastructure.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

X
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

• Healthy domain-name
health checks to domain-
names with multiple values
will return IP addresses for
failed nodes.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

• Healthy domain-name
health checks to domain-
names with multiple values
will return IP addresses for
failed nodes.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

• Healthy domain-name
health checks to domain-
names with multiple values
will return IP addresses for
failed nodes.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

• Healthy domain-name
health checks to domain-
names with multiple values
will return IP addresses for
failed nodes.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Endpoint Domain-Name Health Check Gotchas

• Domain-name health checks

only use IPv4.
• Create ”A” records for
targets.

• Healthy domain-name
health checks to domain-
names with multiple values
will return IP addresses for
failed nodes.
• Use IP-based health checks
with redundant systems.
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Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

Latency routing uses Route 53 record associated with AWS region

“closest” to requesting client.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

Latency routing uses Route 53 record associated with AWS region

“closest” to requesting client.
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Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

Latency is tested against regional endpoints,

NOT the value of the Route 53 records.
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Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

Closest region must have higher latency for alternate record value
to be returned to client.
ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Health Checks and Latency Routing Policy

Create IP address health checks for endpoints using latency routing.

ROUTE 53 HEALTH CHECKS

Fast Takeaways

Route 53 health checks prevent clients from being

sent to offline endpoints.

DNS failover requires configuring multiple records or IP

addresses for a hostname.

Use IP-address endpoint health checks for

resources hosted on redundant endpoints.

Creating health checks for alias records is unnecessary.