R7 - The internet

This week’s reading was all about the internet. The assigned reading divulged all the basics about the internet, such as acronyms, history, and how it works. It inspired me to do some research on two topics: IP addresses and DNS servers. The first article I read is titled ‘Understanding the Inevitable Switch from IPv4 to IPv6’. The second article is titled ‘How Domain Servers Work’.

The first article is about the impending switch from IPv4 to IPv6. Originally, it was agreed upon, in 1980, that the universal standard for internet protocol addresses would be IPv4. This standard leaves open about 4 billion possible addresses to be assigned. As you can imagine, these addresses are being used up quicker than ever. This was not an issue when computers were connected to the internet via dialup. Addresses could be assigned and unassigned as needed. Today, broadband connections require more permanent addresses.  It is not a matter of if, but when the switch to IPv6 will occur. With the IPv6 switch, comes 2^128 addresses to be assigned. This is not the only benefit to the switch. IP counterfeiting becomes incredibly more difficult to perform, and the connection becomes much more reliable. IPv6 will also prioritize data delivery, which means that streaming a video would not be affected by another simultaneous download.

The second article is about how domain name servers work. Specifically, sites such as google.com are assigned IP addresses that navigate to the requested information. For example, a user will type into an internet browser the requested domain name, e.g. google.com. Once the user requests the website to be loaded, the request is sent to a DNS server, or Domain Name System server. The server will check its cache to see if the requested domain is assigned to a specific IP address. If the server is unable to find one, the request will be sent to another DNS server. This occurs until a server is able to forward the user to a specific IP address or the system determines that the address cannot be resolved. If a domain is unable to be resolved, this simply means that the servers cannot find an assigned IP address to forward the user to. This article also goes into much more detail about domain names, and is a good starting point for anyone interested in the topic.

Overall, I found the articles to be very interesting. Anyone that is interested in exactly how computers or servers interact with each other should read these articles.