What is the Domain Name System (DNS)?

The Internet Domain Name System, or DNS, is a directory of all domain names and their corresponding computers. DNS is an essential part of the Internet’s infrastructure—without its naming system, the user-friendly Internet we rely on would not exist. The development of DNS is credited to Paul Mockapetris, and the first DNS servers were activated 25 years ago.

In its simplest form DNS associates easy-to-remember domain names with the corresponding numerical IP addresses that identify computers connected to the Internet. For example, CIRA’s website host name, www.cira.ca, corresponds to the IP address 192.228.29.1, which is far more difficult to remember.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) maintains the authoritative DNS servers for the .CA domain. CIRA’s DNS servers process over 700 million requests per day to connect Internet users with over 1 million .CA domain names.