Definitions for teachers by teachers

DNS

Domain Name System

Looking for a domain name? You'll find it to the right of the @ sign in an email address, or about ten characters into a URL. CNET's domain name is cnet.com. The domain name of daemous@pentagon.io.com is io.com.

Domain names are issued by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and they come with different extensions based on whether the domain belongs  to a commerical enterprise (.com), an educational establishment (.edu), government body (.gov), the military (.mil), a network (.net), or a nonprofit organization (.org). Some domains use a geographical notation too (such as the San Francisco, California-based well.sf.ca.us).

When you send email or point a browser to an Internet domain such as cnet.com, the domain name system translates the names into Internet addresses (a series of numbers looking something like this: 123.123.23.2). The  term refers to two things: the conventions for naming hosts and the way the names are handled across the Internet.

Source:
http://coverage.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/dns.html

by Constanza Bacca & Pedro Willging

DNS - the Domain Name System is a system of assigning short alphabetical names to individual I.P. addresses to describe where the computer is located.  The process of assigning a domain name to represent an I.P. address makes it easier to remember and type.  An example would be if a computer I.P. address was 209.174.166.100 and it was set up to be accessed from the internet it would be quicker to type in a domain name such as www.example.com than the number address.  Our school district's domain name is stjoe.k12.il.us and this represents the I.P. addresse range that we were assigned.

Resource: Webopedia

by Mike Sennert

DNS (Domain Name System or Service)-

DNS is an Internet service that translates domain names (an name that identifies one or more IP addresses) into IP addresses and vice-versa. Domain names are easier to remember than IP addresses since domain names are alphabetic and IP addresses are numeric. For example, if there was a web site www.zage.com, the DNS would convert that into an IP address like 199.103.232.4. Since the Internet deals with IP addresses, we should be grateful there is a DNS to convert the names we can easily remember, into the list of numbers we would easily forget. In addition, the DNS is a network, so if one system does not know the IP address, it will keep searching until is finds the translation of a certain domain name. It is a hierarchial database or tree structure, similar to the directory structure of UNIX or Windows file system. This means that the root domain is at the top and the various subdomains are branches underneath the root. The first level of subdomains are call the "top-level domains." One example of a top-level domain is ".edu". Then underneath the subdomains are more branches. Therefore, uiuc.edu would be under the subdomain of .edu. Look at the illustration below to see how the branches work. They have followed the top-level domain of .com down through the next level of subdomains.

Related Link to DNS: Cisco's Configuring the DNS Service

by Kristin Zage

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