DNSLogzip: A Novel Approach to Fast and High-Ratio Compression for DNS Logs

Domain Name System (DNS) logs capture detailed records of the queries and responses exchanged between DNS servers and clients, playing a crucial role in applications such as cybersecurity monitoring and regulatory compliance, which often require long-term data retention. With the rapid growth of Internet traffic, the volume of DNS logs has surged, presenting significant storage challenges. Although many DNS operators use general-purpose compression algorithms to reduce storage costs, these solutions fail to fully exploit the unique characteristics of DNS data, leading to inefficiencies and rising storage demands.

In this work, we propose a novel solution, DNSLogzip, designed to achieve lossless, fast, and high-ratio compression for DNS logs. Built on in-depth empirical studies of real-world DNS log datasets, we identify four key inter-line and intra-line characteristics that enable effective reduction of redundancies without information loss. DNSLogzip leverages these insights through a modular compression architecture, which allows it to handle varying log formats and offers easy integration and customization based on specific requirements. We have deployed DNSLogzip on two tier-1 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to compress production logs. The results show that DNSLogzip can reduce storage costs by approximately two-thirds, potentially saving up to $163,000 per DNS service node per month.