Recognizing the purpose of DNS

Anyone who has even had a basic networking class will be familiar with DNS. This well-known protocol provides an essential service of translating a human-readable hostname into a machine-readable numeric IP address.

In this section, we'll cover the concept of how DNS works, along with a brief history of how it all began. We'll then move on to a review of the different types of servers involved in resolving an IP address and finish up with comparing the ways DNS is transported.

Let's start with a discussion of why DNS is so essential.

Mapping an IP address

DNS resolves addresses for hosts and services, along with any object that is connected to the internet. In addition, it is also required to deliver email, defend against spam, or initiate a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) conversation.

Whenever a host makes a request to access a resource, the process moves through a series of servers to make the name resolution....