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Domain Name System History
As you may already know, any given website on the internet could be addressed in two different ways: by its IP address such as 123.123.123.123 and by its domain name such as website.com. The first way is how networking hardware and software communicate with each other. You can use this way too but it's just too inconvenient. Try to remember at least ten IP addresses of your favorite websites and keep in mind that if the website will move to another server its IP address will be changed and you will need to remember new one.
Domain names made the thing a lot easier. Most of them are pretty sensible and reflecting the website's topic so you can remember dozens if not hundreds of names in the same time. If the website moves to another physical location its domain name remains the same. Actually, it's hard to notice the fact of location change. Also words or acronyms are faster recognizable than four three-digit numbers that makes domain names more suitable for the wide range of advertising formats.
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Domain Name System a.k.a. DNS is what's responsible for translating domain names in IP addresses - this process is called resolving.
When the internet was developing in the mid 70's / early 80's (it was called ARPAnet those days) the role of DNS was played by small plain text file HOSTS. Every machine on the network was listed in this file along with its IP address. Once or twice a week every network connected computer was downloading the new version of HOSTS to keep this information up to date. It was working very well since it were ridiculous number of slightly more than four hundred names listed in 1981.
This file still could be found in every modern operating system including Windows and may be useful as for any kind of maintenance as for some tweaking. E.g. you could point gameserver.com to 127.0.0.1 (IP address reserved for local machine) to force your kids spend more time doing homework rather than playing games on-line or point your favorite news site to local IP 127.0.0.1 to let nothing distract you from an intensive work.
Since 1981 the number of hosts over the internet began to grow in geometric progression and the flat plain text file became just too big. In 1984 the new architecture proposed to replace HOSTS was developed. The DNS offered distributed scalable database system that allows to administer local segments of the database locally yet make them accessible over entire network.
Those days the internet was sponsored by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Not a surprise that the first top level domain a.k.a. TLD (the last two, three or four letters in any domain name) was .MIL. In 1987 .EDU TLD was offered for educational establishments. Military and civilian scientists were the only users of the internet.
Status quo has changed in the end of 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee has completed his work on the World Wide Web system with its HTML mark-up language and the first web browser software. Thus the commercialization of the internet begins.
In 1994 seven generic TLDs (.COM, .NET, .ORG, .GOV, .MIL, .EDU and .INT) and two-letters country code TLDs were introduced. The first three of them were available for commercial and non-profit entities as well as private persons for commercial, network oriented and non-profit website respectively.
Domain name quickly became some kind of virtual property with the real price. In 1998 computer manufacturer and owner of the Altavista internet search engine Compaq has bought altavista.com domain from its previous owner for record-breaking $3.3 million.
In the search for notable and easy to remember domain names website owners have put their eyes on country code TDLs (ccTLDs). Some of such top level domains were interesting not only for the local inhabitants but also for American and international companies. .TV ccTLD of the tiny island Tuvalu lost somewhere in Pacific ocean was chosen by TV broadcasting companies and related websites. In the early 2000's populated by ten thousand citizens Tuvalu was made up to 90% of its GDP selling .TV domain names. The same was with the Moldavian .MD, Micronesian .FM and some others ccTLDs.
Today almost all reasonable names shorter than six-seven symbols in the .COM, .NET, .ORG zones are taken. To solve this problem in 2000 four new generic TLDs were introduced: .INFO, .BIZ, .NAME and .PRO. Later in 2005 .MOBI TLD was introduced to fulfill the demand from the mobile content providers.
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