Know your IT. What is “DNS” and why do we use it?

DNS, or the Domain Name System, is pretty much, the internet’s phonebook. It translates easy-to-remember names like google.com into numbers (IP addresses) that computers use to find each other. We call these numbers IP Addresses. We currently have 2 times of addressing systems, but again, that’s a talk for another day.

Basically, without DNS, we would need to remember numbers to visit a website or send an email, which would be really difficult!

Here’s why we use DNS:
Convenience: It’s easier to remember names like google.com than long strings of numbers.
Efficiency: It directs internet traffic quickly and accurately to the right place.

For websites, DNS works like this:

1. You type a web address (like example.com) into your browser.
Your computer asks a DNS server, “What’s the IP address for this website?”
2. The DNS server looks up the answer and sends it back.
3. Your browser then uses that IP address to connect to the website and load it.

For email, DNS uses MX (Mail Exchange) records to direct your email to the right location. MX Records are just one of the many types of DNS Records that we use (again, that’s another post.)

For example, if you email john@example.com, DNS tells your email which mail server handles your emails and forwards it to them.

Email itself is a little tricky, as it also uses other DNS Records in the sending process to ensure your emails are approved and verified for sending.

DNS makes the internet easy, fast, and user-friendly!