The Domain Name Service (DNS) is a distributed database that maps domain names, such as merit.k12.mi.us, to IP addresses, such as 2.210.234.123, and vice versa. Although the DNS database is distributed throughout the Internet, it’s useful to think of it as if it were just two enormous tables:

• the forward map: look up a name, get an IP address
• the reverse map: look up an IP address, get a name

Updated On: 12.07.11