Domain Name System translates human‑friendly hostnames into machine IPs, forming the Internet’s backbone. Amazon’s Route 53 offers a fully managed, authoritative DNS service that lets customers update records, monitor resource health, and enjoy a 100 % availability SLA. It also doubles as a domain registrar, simplifying management.

Each Hosted Zone holds records that map domain names to IPs or AWS resources. Public zones route traffic on the Internet, while private zones keep traffic inside VPCs. TTL values control caching; high TTL reduces queries but risks stale data, whereas low TTL keeps records fresh at the cost of more traffic.

Routing policies decide how DNS replies to queries. Simple directs to one target; Weighted splits traffic by assigned weights; Latency‑based picks the nearest AWS region; Failover switches to a secondary when the primary fails. Health checks, often HTTP or TCP, enable automated failover and fine‑grained monitoring.

Domain registrars like GoDaddy sell names, but DNS services can be separate. Using Route 53 as the DNS provider requires updating NS records at the registrar. Hybrid DNS lets Route 53 Resolver forward queries between on‑premises networks and VPCs via inbound and outbound endpoints, expanding reach beyond AWS.