This paper discusses the motivation and design behind the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). Initially, the authors describe the existing centralized HOSTS.TXT record file (which seems like a terrible idea right now, given the single point of failure) and the clear need for a distributed scheme. The hierarchical, tree-like structure that is presented seems quite intuitive and there is little mention of possible architectural alternatives. Unlike most previous papers in the syllabus, this one spends less time foreseeing potential problems; instead, the focus is on DNS design, functionality and a few immediately observed performance issues.
Caching was probably one of the more interesting points of discussion. One issues that was mentioned is that while meaningful query results are cached, negative results for nonexistent records are not. In my opinion, this is a valid but somewhat trivial concern. Instead, some foresight into security issues (i.e., cache poisoning) would have been appropriate. Interestingly, there appears to be a trend throughout many of the original Internet papers - strong assumptions are made about the trustworthiness of participants. Overall, this was an informative paper that underscored the reasons behind the DNS architecture. However, it did not pose as many questions going ahead; in a sense, it felt like undergraduate networking material.
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