- PowerDNS performed a major internal cleanup, replacing ASCII domain name handling with a DNSName class and moving to C++11, which improved correctness and prepared for DNSSEC.
- DNSSEC implementation was professionalized by new hires (Pieter Lexis, Rémi Gacogne, Otto Moerbeek) and contributors, expanding from the authoritative server to the recursor.
- The 'Scandinavian Problem' (negative reputation) led to a bug hunt that improved performance metrics and eventually inspired the creation of dnsdist.
- dnsdist was created initially for query forwarding, then evolved into a vendor-neutral DNS load balancer with Lua scripting, console, and statistics, quickly adopted by many.