Domain Name System turns 20

Dom · Jun 23, 2003, 03:33 PM

Exactly 20 years ago, two computer scientists Jon Postel and Paul Mockapetris at the University of Southern California invented a key component that was to become the backbone of the Internet. Reading this article has been made possible mainly due to their pioneering work.
The development of the automated domain name system, or DNS as it is popularly known, was the turning point which allowed computers to locate each other on the network and exchange information on their own.

Till then, one had to manually locate the addresses of each machine, a cumbersome process comparable to locating a telephone number on a directory.

On the ARPAnet at USC, the Internet's precursor, the users had to find other computers on the network by searching entries in a file called 'hosts.txt'. Every time a new computer was linked to the network, its name and IP address were added to the master copy of this 'hosts' file, which was then downloaded by each administrator of a computer on the network.

In the early '80s, a USC staff, Mary Stahl, was in charge for maintaining the master copy of this hosts file, and indeed, she was the 'first DNS.'

Soon enough, distributing updated 'hosts' files, however, created scalability problems as the number of computers increased on the network. Around the same time, at USC's Information Sciences Institute, Paul Mockapetris had just invented the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for email, and successfully implemented it.

SMTP allowed emails to be sent between different kinds of computers. Paul and Jon Postel teamed up to create ‘a globally distributed database of human-readable names and IP addresses.’

In 1983, they created the Domain Name System, and its architecture is still in use today. The first DNS implementation was called 'Jeeves', running on the TOPS-20 operating system.

After the official formation of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 1986, DNS turned into one of the original Internet Standards. The concept of DNS sounds simple now, but it was a pathbreaking venture 20 years ago.

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Source: Sify

Jun 23, 2003, 03:33 PM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Domain Name System turns 20 Exactly 20 years ago, two computer scientists Jon Postel and Paul Mockapetris at the University of Southern California invented a key component that was to become the backbone of the Internet. Reading this article has been made possible mainly due to their pioneering work. The development of the automated domain name system, or DNS as it is popularly known, was the turning point which allowed computers to locate each other on the network and exchange information on their own. Till then, one had to manually locate the addresses of each machine, a cumbersome process comparable to locating a telephone number on a directory. On the ARPAnet at USC, the Internet's precursor, the users had to find other computers on the network by searching entries in a file called 'hosts.txt'. Every time a new computer was linked to the network, its name and IP address were added to the master copy of this 'hosts' file, which was then downloaded by each administrator of a computer on the network. In the early '80s, a USC staff, Mary Stahl, was in charge for maintaining the master copy of this hosts file, and indeed, she was the 'first DNS.' Soon enough, distributing updated 'hosts' files, however, created scalability problems as the number of computers increased on the network. Around the same time, at USC's Information Sciences Institute, Paul Mockapetris had just invented the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for email, and successfully implemented it. SMTP allowed emails to be sent between different kinds of computers. Paul and Jon Postel teamed up to create ‘a globally distributed database of human-readable names and IP addresses.’ In 1983, they created the Domain Name System, and its architecture is still in use today. The first DNS implementation was called 'Jeeves', running on the TOPS-20 operating system. After the official formation of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 1986, DNS turned into one of the original Internet Standards. The concept of DNS sounds simple now, but it was a pathbreaking venture 20 years ago. _________________ Source: Sify