Rackspace Cloud Library

What Is a Domain Name System (DNS)?

A Domain Name System (DNS) is like a phone book for the Internet. It keeps track of domain names (the part of a web address that comes after “www.”) and the long string of numbers (called an “IP address”) associated with that website.

Without DNS services, you’d need to type something like 172.16.254.1 every time you want to go to a particular website. Instead, you can just type the easier-to-remember website name.

Essential Elements of DNS

Domain Name Registration

Every domain name must be registered with a domain name registrar — a company that keeps track of who owns which domains.

Web Servers

Web servers store your website’s information, such as the text, images and video that make up your website.

Website Hosting

Website hosting companies provide you with online access to the web servers you need, saving you the money and hassle of purchasing and managing servers yourself.

Name Servers

Name servers are the servers that run DNS software. Your website’s DNS information is stored on those name servers, which are hosted and managed by your DNS hosting company.

How Can Rackspace Help?

If you’re looking for DNS hosting services to simply host your DNS information for you, we can do that. By serving as your DNS hosting provider, we provide the DNS services that will tell computers where to find your website. Or perhaps you’re a business that offers DNS services to your customers, but you’re finding it too difficult to provide DNS hosting services on your own. For you, we provide our Cloud DNS service.

With Cloud DNS, you can easily plug into our DNS hosting service using our APIs or our control panel. We’ll manage the backend for you. Cloud DNS is included free with every Rackspace cloud account. Become DNS savvy. Learn More.

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