DNS celebrates 25th birthday

The internet's Domain Name System is 25 years old this week..

Paul Mockapetris, chairman and chief scientist at Nominum, is credited with inventing the DNS in 1983.

Mockapetris shared his thoughts on the technology during a ceremony at the Oxford Internet Institute, discussing how it came to be, its impact on the internet and where it is headed.

What started as a small project that few thought would be such an important aspect of communication, the DNS is now part of the internet's underlying infrastructure and provided an alternative to typing numerical IP addresses for every domain name.

"The DNS is the database for internet communication technology and, with billions of people using it everyday and millions of companies and organisations with registered domain names, the technology is ubiquitous in the developed world," he said.

"It continues to spread around the globe, and has given us the flexibility to change the way we communicate.

"As more people come online they need rapid, intuitive and safe DNS services that do not require technical expertise."

Mockapetris added that one of the greatest achievements of the DNS is its ability to adjust to the world's changing needs.

When the DNS was created, eight years before the introduction of the World Wide Web, a few hundred machines were connected to the internet.

Today more than 130 million are connected, and this number is expected to grow substantially as the majority of the world's population gets online.