What is DNS?

[Kevin Darcy]

jpaigel at my-deja.com wrote:

> Hello everyone!
>
> I am taking a Web Development class, and part of
> our coursework is to learn from the assorted
> newsgroups and listservs available on particular
> areas that we discuss in class.  So, I was hoping
> that someone here could answer a question for me.
> I am wanting to learn about DNS.  What is it
> exactly?  I know that most everyone here are
> probably experts in the field, but I am hoping to
> someone out there could be nice enough to help a
> beginner out!  Thanks!

In a sentence:

It's a distributed, hierarchical, replicatable database with caching,
referral and aliasing capabilities, containing mostly network-related
information, such as name-to-address and address-to-name mappings, and
which is usually accessed by clients in a simple query-response manner.

Does that make any sense?



- Kevin