Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Amazon Web Services launches DNS system

By | December 6, 2010, 4:45am PST

Summary: AWS is allowing users to create, change and delete DNS files for any domain. AWS does this using a “hosted zone”,” which acts as a phone book of sorts matching names to IP addresses.

Amazon Web Services on Monday launched a programmable Domain Name Service dubbed Route 53.

With the service, AWS is allowing users to create, change and delete DNS files for any domain. AWS does this using a “hosted zone”,” which acts as a phone book of sorts matching names to IP addresses. The idea is to control what server an end user will hit. Developers and business can use Route 53 optimize performance.

In a blog post, AWS explains:

“You could create a new sub-domain for each new customer of a Software as a Service (SaaS) application. DNS queries for information within your domains will be routed to a global network of 16 edge locations tuned for high availability and high performance.”

Route 53 will cost $1 a month per zone and 50 cents per million queries for the first billion queries a month. After that it’s 25 cents per million queries. Each AWS account can support 100 hosted zones.

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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