COMPUTER NETWORKS 7 DNS: What It Is and What It Does By Blair Rampling and David Dalan In essence, DNS is simply

a database that links meaningful names (known as host names), such as http://www.microsoft.com, to a specific IP address, such as 192. 168.124.1. Simply linking addresses to names is just the beginning, though, beca use DNS has many more features in addition to host-name-to-address mapping. The key features of host name to IP mapping are as follows: Mappings of addresses to names and vice versa (known as records) are stored in a database. The DNS database is distributed. A DNS database also stores additional records. Although DNS is a database, most importantly it's a distributed database. Each D NS server contains only a small portion of the host name to IP address mappings (relative to the number of records for the entire Internet). Each DNS server is configured with a special record that tells the DNS server where (the IP address of another DNS server) it will perform a lookup for records it doesn't have in its portion of the DNS database. Because of this arrangement, each DNS server ma intains only a small portion of the total DNS host to IP address mappings. The c ollection of host-name-to-IP-address mappings contained with the DNS database is also known as a namespace. Essentially, when looking for a name in DNS, the DNS client first checks a top-level DNS server database. That server tells the clie nt which DNS server hosts the next part of the DNS name, and the client then que ries that server. This lookup-and-handoff process continues until the client fin ds the DNS server that hosts the DNS record in question, and that server provide s the IP address. In addition to the basic IP-address-to-host-name mapping records stored by the D NS database, records are also maintained by DNS for other purposes. DNS contains a number of record types that facilitate other applications. The Mail Exchanger (MX) record, for example, provides mail servers with the information required t o forward e-mail messages to the recipient's e-mail server. Another type of reco rd, the service (SVC) record, is used by Microsoft Active Directory to locate ne twork services. Seeing the DNS difference By itself, DNS doesn't appear to do much, and on top of that, DNS can seem a bit intimidating because it has number of different features and record types. One key to understanding the importance of DNS is realizing how other processes and applications depend on the services DNS provides. By understanding how DNS provi des the underlying services used by various applications, you can get a clearer picture of why DNS exists and how it works. Many common applications use DNS services, including World Wide Web (WWW) E-mail Other applications, such as instant messaging