AWS Route 53 – Basics

Introduction

Route 53 is AWS’ very own core DNS offering.

Its is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service.

While building Route 53, AWS main goal was to build a system that could survive beyond five nines of availability (99.999%) and it seems like AWS has achieved it.

You can use Route 53 to perform three main functions in any combination:

• Domain registration
• DNS routing
• Health checking

Along with standard DNS services, Route 53 also includes the ability to purchase and transfer domains to and from other registrars.

When you register a domain name using Route 53, it creates what’s called a public hosted zone (a public hosted zone is simply where DNS records for the domains are stored). You can create public hosted zone only for the domain, you own.

Private Hosted zones are not visible to public and they attached to AWS VPC. Multiple VPCs (even in different accounts) can be associated to a private hosted zone.

If you are getting started with a new domain, Route 53 is a good place to start.

But, before we go into Route 53 details, lets cover few DNS basics first.