Description of Domain Name System (DNS)

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This article was previously published under Q174224

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SUMMARY

This article describes the Domain Name System (DNS) and its major components.

DNS is the name service for Internet addresses that translates friendly domain names to numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. For example, "www.microsoft.com" translates to 198.105.232.6.

DNS consists of the following components:

Domains: A domain is a logical group of computers in a large network. Access to each computer in a given group is controlled by the same server.
Distributed Database: A distributed database is an archive of information about the computers in a network.
Name Servers: A name server contains address information about other computers on the network. This information can be given to client computers that make a request to the name server.
Clients: A client requests information from the servers. In a domain name system, the client requests network addressing information from the name servers.
Resolver: A resolver provides clients with address information about other computers on the network.