What does DNS stand for?

What does DNS stand for? DNS means Domain Name System. It is the Internet's hierarchical, distributed naming system, translating memorable domain names such as example.com into numerical IP addresses that computers use to locate services.

DNS was created by Paul Mockapetris in 1983, when the older ARPANET HOSTS.TXT file was becoming too large and difficult to maintain. Instead of one central list, DNS distributes responsibility among root, top-level-domain, and authoritative name servers. Its original specifications were published in RFC 882 and RFC 883.

DNS is often compared with a telephone directory, but the analogy is incomplete: it can store many record types, including A and AAAA address records, MX mail-server records, NS delegation records, and CNAME aliases. DNS commonly uses UDP port 53, while TCP and encrypted variants are also used. A DNS server is not the expansion of the acronym; it is one component that stores or answers DNS records.