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DNS for beginners: its role and importance

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Although it may seem a technical and complex concept, understanding what a DNS is and how it works is essential for anyone who uses the Internet, especially if you plan to have your own we or already have one.

As we know that this kind of concepts can be difficult to understand, we have written this small guide to try that anyone can understand what a DNS is in a simple way, without going into too many details.

DNS is the acronym for Domain Name System. In simple terms, it is like the Internet’s phone book. When you type a web address into your browser, such as “www.ejemplo.com”, the DNS is the system in charge of translating that human-readable domain name into an IP address, which is a series of numbers that identifies a device connected to the Internet.

Imagine DNS as a translator that converts a domain name into an IP address, allowing you to access websites and other online resources.

How DNS works involves several steps, let’s break it down into simpler steps so you can understand it easily in case you don’t know how it works:

1. Domain name request

When you type a web address in your browser, such as “www.ejemplo.com”, your computer sends a request to the DNS server. This request contains the domain name you want to visit.

2. Local cache lookup

Your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP’s) DNS server checks to see if it has previously translated that domain name. If it has, and the information is stored in its local cache, the IP address is returned immediately without further lookup.

3. Lookup on other DNS servers

If the information is not in the DNS server’s local cache, it will send the request to other DNS servers on the network. This process continues in a hierarchy until the IP address associated with the requested domain name is found.

4. Response and website access

Once the IP address corresponding to the requested domain name is found, it is returned to the user’s device. With this information, the browser can establish a connection to the web server hosting the site and display its content.

Qué son las DNS y por qué son importantes.

At this point you are probably wondering what is the importance of this concept. Well, DNS is essential for Internet browsing for several reasons:

It facilitates access to websites

Without DNS, users would have to remember and type in numeric IP addresses instead of readable domain names. This would make Internet browsing much more complicated and less accessible for most people. Imagine if you had to learn the phone number of all your contacts in your address book, instead of simply looking them up by name.

Improves performance

Using domain names instead of IP addresses simplifies network administration and allows changes to the infrastructure without affecting the accessibility of websites. In addition, by using optimized DNS servers, response times can be reduced and the speed of access to websites can be improved.

Provides redundancy and fault tolerance

DNS is designed to be a distributed and decentralized system. This means that if one DNS server fails, there are many other servers available to handle user requests. This helps ensure that the Internet continues to function even in the event of technical problems.

Supports other services

In addition to translating domain names into IP addresses, DNS is also critical for other Internet services, such as email and secure browsing. Without a functional DNS, these services would also be affected.

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