What is Route 53 in AWS? Features & Use Cases.

If you are working with websites, computers, and connected devices, then you need to have an IP address and you must be familiar with DNS services. This is the service that is used to map the IP address to the domain names and this feature allows the users to access the website. One of the most common and reliable DNS services that are making rounds in the market is AWS Route 53. It is the DNS service that will help the user to connect the internet traffic to the needed servers hosting the web applications that are requested.

If you are also an enthusiast in this field and want to know more about what is Route 53 in AWS, then you have landed on the right page. Today we are going to discuss what is Route 53 in AWS, how it works, and what are the key features of this application. By the end of this article, you will be having each bit of information about Route 53 in AWS.

What is AWS Route 53 and how does it work?

Known to be one of the most efficient and scalable cloud-based web services, this application is also used for checking the health of the resources.  Using this application, the developers are able to connect the users to the internet applications and there will be no downtime for this. Although, there could be some downtime for this, when the users are working on that, they will not be aware of this. With the help of this application, the user will be able to connect to other AWS services like Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing, or Amazon S3 buckets. One of the main things that are associated with this application is that it helps the companies to register for the domain name they want. For example, if you want to buy a domain name, then you can do so by using Route 53. When the user or the customer enters the name of the website, it helps the users to connect to the website in the application to the browser.

As mentioned above, it helps in checking the health of the resources and before there is any problem that comes to the notice of the customer, it sends a request automatically over the internet to the resources. Now that you have a fair understanding of what AWS Route 53 is, let us understand how does it works.

When the users are using the Route 53 applications, they are able to connect the request to the infrastructure that is running in AWS. These requests can include the connection to various AWS services mentioned above. Not only this, it is used to connect to the infrastructure that is outside of AWS. This is one of the applications that are easily customizable and using this, you can monitor your applications’ ability. You can see how well they can recover from the failures, and how the Application Recovery Controller works. Not only this, this can be used to manage the flow of traffic globally via a wide routing type that includes latency-based routing, geo DNS, and geo proximity.

The working of this application can be understood step by step with the below points:

1. When the user is going to access any website on their browser, the address is managed by Route 53 and this will lead the machine to the AWS.
2. The request that was made by the user for the given website will be Routed to eh user’s DNS resolver and this will be managed by the ISP or the local network and will then be forwarded to the DNS root server.
3. Now that the DNS server has completed its role, it will forward the request to TLD name servers for the particular types of domains like .com.
4. There are four amazon Route 53 name servers that will be able to host the domain’s DNS zone. The resolver will help to obtain the authoritative name server for the domain. The resolver involved in this case will choose one of these four Routes 53 servers and then request the required details for the hostname of the given website that the user searched in their browser.
5. Now the Route 53 name server will start looking for that website in the DNS zone and when the IP address is found along with the needed information, it is then returned to the DNS resolver.
6. The DNS resolver will now return the IP address to the user’s browser where the user was waiting. Also, the resolver will cache the IP address locally which can be specified by the Time to Live (TTL) parameter.
7. The connections of web browsers and the servers and other amazon Hosted services, the use of IP address can be provided by the resolver. And now the user is able to view the website that he searched for in the browser menu.

Features of AWS Route 53

After we learned what is amazon Route 53, let us look at some of the amazing features that you are going to have with this server routing tool.

Resolver

The DNS resolver present in Route 53 is used to perform the DNS resolution between the local network and the VPC. The DNS queries from the users are carried out with the help of this resolver from the local network and then with the conditional configuration, it is forwarded back to the local network. The AWS Route 53 supports both IPv4 and IPv6 formats with it.

Traffic flow

There are various key parameters that are used for managing the traffic intelligently and these parameters involve proximity, the health of endpoints and latency along with many others.

Geo DNS and Latency-Based Routing

Using this tool, there will be reduced latency and the user experience for the end-users can be increased. This can be done by routing the traffic from the servers to the closest end users.

Private DNS from Amazon VPC

Another great feature of this tool is that you are able to configure Route 53 to work with the DNS queries within the private hosted VPC zones. This is the major security feature as it will not allow the DNS resolution data to come in contact with the public networks.

Health Check and monitoring

One of the major things that are to be noted for Route 53 is that it directs the internet traffic to the healthy target instances and is based on the specified configurations. There are outages sometimes and, in this case, this will make sure that the traffic is sent to the healthy endpoints and there is no downtime. The health check feature generates CloudWatch metrics that can further trigger AWS Lambda functions to perform appropriate corrective actions.

S3 and CloudFront Apex Support

When you are working with this Route 53 tool, you will be able to create your own SSL certificates without the need for proprietary code or configurations that are complicated in nature. Additionally, the apex zone support will help Route 53 to request the root domain such as example.com, and there will be no penalty for the server as it is not required to access the backend servers.

Registration of domain

There could be already exiting domains, but with the scalability feature of the DNS management service, the users are able to manage, transfer and register for the new domains to the AWS Route 53. This will help the user to have billing and management done in an efficient way for delivering web-hosted services.

Amazon ELB integration

There could be a traffic load, but with the use of AWS Elastic Load balancing capability, this can be distributed to multiple instances that are present in AWS. This will help in maximizing the ability of the web server and this will keep the health in check. Furthermore, it allows the users to have more fault tolerance in their web services and manage the on-premise infrastructure resources.

Weighted round Robin

This is one of the services that is provided for the developers to configure how often the DNS response is returned. This is helpful because it will help in managing the testing purpose as well as balancing the traffic.

Management Console

With Route 53, a simple and intuitive console is provided to the users that can help them to view the resources and perform various operational tasks. It is also available as a mobile app. Many functionalities can be performed using this console.

What are the benefits of using Route 53?

If we look at the benefits that are provided with this tool, then some of them are mentioned below:

1. It is highly available. The AWS Route 53 is built using the AWS highly available and reliable infrastructure. There are many availability zones that are present and these can be used as distribution points for DNS servers. This helps to make sure that they can Route the end-users to your websites consistently.
2. Another important benefit is the flexibility it shows. Using this, the users are able to choose the traffic policies that are based on various criteria. They can choose from the endpoint, the health, geographic location as well as latency.
3. The application is really fast as well as scalable. This is designed in such a way that it is able to handle the high volume of queries automatically and there is no user interaction required in doing so. Also, the distributed Routes used in this application will help in keeping the service fast. It provides low latency and fast services to the users.
4. Another great benefit of using this application is that it is cost-effective. You do not have to pay for anything that you are not using. You will pay only for the hosted zones you are managing, or the number of queries that are answered per domain, etc.
5. An advantage that everyone looks for is the security provided. With this, you are going to have a secured AWS account and you can mention who will have access to which parts of the services on your own.

What are the types of routing policies?

There are various types of routing policies that are present when you are using the AWS Routing 53 and we are going to explain them below:

Simple Routing

In this type, the users the allow configuring the DNS with no special routing sung the Route 53. The main use of this type of routing is for the single resource and this can be used to perform the given function in your domain.

Failover routing

In this routing, the traffic is rioted to the alternate resource if the previous point comes out to be unhealthy. Here one point is active and another point is on stand by and this will be done automatically to avoid any failure.

Geolocation Routing

In this type of routing, the touting is done based on the geolocation of the users. It helps in giving the best experience as it localizes the website in the language of the area. It could be country or continent specific.

Geo Proximity Routing

In this, there is an option to give less or more traffic to the given location based on the location of the users and their resources.

Latency Based Routing

When there are installed and hosted websites across the multiple AWS regions, this type of routing works. It helps in increasing the performance by servicing the request from the lowest latency region of AWS.

Weighted Routing

In this, there are multiple resources that are used for routing to the single domain name and then control the traffic to be Routed to each resource in return. It is very helpful for the testing and load balancing of the new versions of the soft3are that will come out in the market.

What are the limitations of using AWS Route 53?

Indeed, there are various features that come with this tool, but there are certain limitations that are needed to be overcome. Some of the limitations are mentioned below:

• Route 53 does not provide forwarding or conditional forwarding options for the domains that are used on-premise networks.
• This application lacks advanced policy support and also the features that will help in load balancing capabilities.
• When it is used with the AWS service, this can become a single point of failure and will cause a major issue in recovery.
• If the business is using Route 53 with non-AWS endpoints or services, then this service can become quite expensive and cost more than required.
• AWS Route 53 DNS cannot be appointed as the authoritative source for cloud websites.com, even after having the root-level domain registered.

Conclusion

On this page, we have come across various features, benefits, and what is Route 53 in AWS. There are so many features and routing types that are provided when we are using this tool. Although it comes with its own set of limitations, it is one of the most popularly used tools as it outweighs its limitations. You can use this system as a cost-effective measure for routing purposes and it can integrate well with other AWS services that you can use in your organization. It is very reliable and scalable which makes it the perfect choice for the developers for managing the Route, time, and health of the system.

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