The Advantages of a Domain Name Service
A Domain Name Service (DNS) is an integral part of Internet networking technologies. Many servers are involved in a conventional Internet connection. The DNS servers do not control the connection itself, but do improve the user experience by automatically translating numerical IP addresses into alphanumeric domain names. This has many advantages.
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Memorable Addresses
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The most obvious and useful characteristic of a Domain Name Service is to make website addresses easier to remember. Internet servers use IP addresses to establish their location on the global network. These addresses are strictly numerical and contain many digits. All websites can be accessed by using their IP addresses, but this is an inconvenient way to market, share and remember a website. A domain name, on the other hand, is usually comprised of logical words corresponding to the content of the site, the name of the company or other meaningful text. A DNS server is required to translate the text version of an IP address into the numerical form required for an actual server connection to be established. These servers are a standard component of an Internet service provider's network.
Troubleshooting
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Websites are not the only users that benefit from domain name translation via DNS. Many servers that are not usually public or widely exposed use DNS translation as well. For example, an Internet service provider may have multiple servers on its network for the purposes of establishing Internet connections. Each of these servers has an IP address like any other Internet server. These DNS translation of these IP addresses can help technicians and network engineers investigate problems with Internet service on their network. When scanning the large network of the Internet service provider, each server will usually be identified by its actual physical location in a text-based DNS format. For example, a server may be listed as "chicago1.internetprovider.net" instead of a string of numbers. This streamlines the process of analyzing different service locations.
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Migration
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When a website is hosted on a Web server, the domain name for that website points to the actual IP address of the server by using a Domain Name Service. However Web servers frequently change, and website owners may upgrade or move their site to another location or company. Without DNS, the entire address of the website would change. However, since the public only interacts with the domain name, the pointer in the DNS system can be changed to reflect the new server location. The public accesses the new server using the same website address, and the migration is seamless. This also allows companies to temporarily direct Internet traffic to backup servers without anyone being aware of a change in the infrastructure of the website.
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References
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