Theme: Organization of work of local networks. Networking by domain structure. Contents

Domain Name Service or “DNS” servers

Earlier, we had mentioned that a target device could be located by its IP address or by its device or “host” name.  If a device needs to connect to a device, but only knows its name, e.g., www.uhcl.edu, it can ask a computer configured with Domain Name Service ("DNS") software to find the IP address of the intended target device by its host name.

Each DNS server holds information about the devices that are part of an organization’s network.  It also keeps track of the addresses of specialty devices that the world needs to find, e.g., the e-mail servers.  The DNS server is not merely a standalone directory service.  In cases where a sending device needs to find the address of a device that belongs to a different organization, the DNS will locate the appropriate DNS server anywhere on the Internet to give you the appropriate target device’s IP address information.