You must have been surfing the internet for years now and encounter these terms but you still don’t know what DNS means. To those who didn’t know, the DNS or Domain Name System is the organization of every computer Internet Protocol addresses on the internet, therefore allowing the computers from different places to communicate with each other. We can just say that the DNS Servers acts as a postal delivery service of some sort in order for computers to stay in touch with one another. Needless to say, without DNS servers, communication between computers is definitely impossible.
Preferred and Alternate DNS Servers: What’s the Difference?
DNS Server Functions
If it isn’t that obvious, we all know that computers actually don’t know how to recognize letters, let alone Website URLs. Whenever you type your favorite social networking website’s URL, the DNS servers work by looking up on DNS server listings and then taking you to the URL’s designated IP Address. The lookup is being done in a few seconds, thanks to the lookup optimizations technologies of computers nowadays.
Preferred and Alternate DNS Servers
To those who didn’t know, preferred and alternate DNS servers are just the same, though different in purpose. A computer server that’s being used as a preferred DNS Server can also be used as an alternate one and vice-versa. They are also similar when it comes to function. However, unlike the Preferred DNS servers, Alternate DNS servers are only used once the Preferred DNS Server is down. A preferred DNS server can be down due to some obvious reasons: System updates, maintenance, hacker attacks and even limited internet connectivity. In this case, the computer looks for the website’s alternate DNS server in order to access its contents. However, if there are no alternate DNS servers available, chances are that the remote computer will be downright inaccessible.
Our Computers as DNS Servers
Maybe most of us will just ask this question: Does our own computers don’t have the capability to shoulder this work? Well…the truth is, it is possible. However, there definitely no doubt that lots of DNS updates must be done daily due to the fact that more websites are now on the rise nowadays. This sure sounds like a lot of work, even for technological geeks. Computers can do the work and there’s definitely no doubt about it. But the question left to answer is, are you willing to do the daily DNS updating alone?