[CSC2231] Paper Review: Development of the Domain Name System

This paper studies the domain name system (DNS), a hierarchical
distributed naming system that replaces the cumbersome HOSTS.TXT file
for name-to-address translation.

I find this study convincing because this study summaries the
experiences over a 5-year time frame since the initial DNS was designed.
Although DNS in 1988 might not be as well-established as it is today,
the foundings are still vaulable for those seeking to further improve
DNS today.

The surprising issues mentioned in the paper are also surprising to me.
I do not expect the DNS response time is in the order of seconds and as
much as 60% of queries are answered with negative response. I think that
the slow performance would vanish by having faster machines and more
stable network, but the negative response issue would always exist
because software applications may exploit DNS for the purpose of
hostname verification and Internet users may mistype hostnames when
browsing.

To further improve the paper, I would suggest a more in-depth comparison
between DNS and other distributed naming systems to show why DNS is more
favourable than other systems. I think this is important because it is
otherwise hard to reason why the world should settle on and deploy this
naming system over others.
Received on Mon Oct 03 2005 - 10:11:34 EDT