Domain Name Services (DNS)

The Domain Name System (or Service) is an Internet service that translates domain names to or from Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.  IP addresses are the actual basis of communication between devices on the Internet.

Each IP address on a network (whether public or private) takes the form of a group of four numbers separated by decimal points: e.g., 129.171.64.78.  It can be difficult for Internet users to remember these numbers so names are given to represent each number.  

(A new version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6), will use six numbers to form an IP address.  IPv6 is necessary because the current four-number system doesn't provide enough addresses for today's computing world.)

Domain names typically describe a logical hierarchical structure.  For example, to reach the medical sub-domain of the University of Miami sub-domain of the education sub-domain of the Internet, you type www.med.miami.edu instead of http://129.171.64.78/.  If you click on either of those links, you'll got to the School of Medicine's home page.

Because of DNS, the mapping from the names you remember to and from the numbers that computers use for Internet traffic routing occurs seamlessly in the background -- at least it does if everything is working correctly.

If you need information about the medical campus network's DNS configuration, contact the Network Engineering group. 

Learn more

DNS Stuff
Lots of "stuff" for playing with DNS names -- pings, reverse lookups, etc.

The Internet Domain Name System Explained for Non-Experts (Internet Society)
The title says it all.  A nice not-overly-technical overview.

DNS Root Name Servers Explained for Non-Experts (Internet Society)
A similarly not-overly-technical overview of this critical part of the DNS system.