Amazon Route 53: Cloud DNS

Amazon Route 53 is a highly scalable Domain Name System (DNS). It translates domain names like awsnewbies.com into an IP address so your computer can access the website or web application (another computer). 

Without a Domain Name System, you have to remember IP addresses in order to access websites instead of being able to type in a URL (imagine having to memorize a long series of numbers for every website you wanted to visit!).

You can use Route 53 to route requests to AWS infrastructure like EC2 Instances and S3 buckets, and also to infrastructure outside of AWS.  You can use it to configure DNS health checks to route traffic to healthy endpoints.

You can also purchase domain names using Route 53 and it will automatically configure DNS settings for you.

Amazon Route 53 Basic Functions

• Domain Registration: register awsnewbies.com
• Domain Name System (DNS) Service: translate awsnewbies.com to the IP address
• Health Checking: verify your web application is reachable, available, and functional
• Auto naming for service discovery: define configuration for DNS records and health check for Route 53 to create whenever a service instance is registered

Hosted Zones

Your DNS records are organized into Hosted Zones that you can configure via API.

• Public Hosted Zones: container that holds information about how to route traffic on the internet for a sub/domain
• Private Hosted Zones: container that holds information about how to route traffic for a sub/domain within one or more VPCs

Cost

• Pay as you go, and only pay for what you use
• You pay for:
  • Managing hosted zones: monthly charge for each hosted zone
  • Serving DNS queries (except for Alias A records mapped to Elastic Load Balancing Instances or S3 website buckets)
  • Managing domain names: annual registration fee (usually something like $10-12)

Resources

• Amazon Route 53 (AWS)
• Amazon Route 53 – API Reference (AWS KB)
• Amazon Route 53 Product Details (AWS KB)