ComputingComputer ScienceInformation TechnologyComputer NetworksDatabasesDistributed SystemsDomain Name SystemInternet Protocol SuiteNetwork ProtocolsDns ArchitectureInternet Protocol
DNS is a distributed, coherent, reliable, autonomous, hierarchical database that has been foundational to the Internet since the 1980s and has evolved through periodic refinements. The article investigates the supposed and true definitions of DNS and the tension between them. It examines this tension through the lens of Internet protocol development philosophy.
DNS is a distributed, coherent, reliable, autonomous, hierarchical database, the first and only one of its kind. Created in the 1980s when the Internet was still young but overrunning its original system for translating host names into IP addresses, DNS is one of the foundation technologies that made the worldwide Internet possible. Yet this did not all happen smoothly, and DNS technology has been periodically refreshed and refined. Though it’s still possible to describe DNS in simple terms, the underlying details are by now quite sublime. This article explores the supposed and true definitions of DNS and shows some of the tension between these two definitions through the lens of the Internet protocol development philosophy.