This is Part 1 of a three-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's Domain Name System (DNS) services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management. To begin the series, we focus on Akamai's DNS platform, which was the subject of a technical paper presented at SIGCOMM 2020 this past August. \r\n Our world is full of commodities. Everyday items like gasoline or bleach, or traded commodities such as gold or crude oil might come to mind, but there are many examples in technology as well. With commodities, we typically seek the least expensive or easiest product, we buy it, and we move on. \r\n DNS is a technology that's been around for so long, it's arguably become commoditized, at least in some peoples' thinking. Maybe it's because it's so mature and highly standardized (which it needs to be, or the internet wouldn't function). Maybe it's because there are so many options to choose from. Or maybe it's because the DNS mostly just works. Until it doesn't.…