# What is Amazon Route 53? Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service. You can use Route 53 to perform three main functions in any combination: domain registration, DNS routing, and health checking. If you choose to use Route 53 for all three functions, be sure to follow the order below: **1. Register domain names** Your website needs a name, such as example.com. Route 53 lets you register a name for your website or web application, known as a *domain name*. + For an overview, see [How domain registration works](welcome-domain-registration.md). + For a procedure, see [Registering a new domain](domain-register.md). + For a tutorial that takes you through registering a domain and creating a simple website in an Amazon S3 bucket, see [Getting started with Amazon Route 53](getting-started.md). **2. Route internet traffic to the resources for your domain** When a user opens a web browser and enters your domain name (example.com) or subdomain name (acme.example.com) in the address bar, Route 53 helps connect the browser with your website or web application. + For an overview, see [How internet traffic is routed to your website or web application](welcome-dns-service.md). + For procedures, see [Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service](dns-configuring.md). + For a procedure on how to route email to Amazon WorkMail, see [Routing traffic to Amazon WorkMail](routing-to-workmail.md). **3. Check the health of your resources** Route 53 sends automated requests over the internet to a resource, such as a web server, to verify that it's reachable, available, and functional. You also can choose to receive notifications when a resource becomes unavailable and choose to route internet traffic away from unhealthy resources. + For an overview, see [How Amazon Route 53 checks the health of your resources](welcome-health-checks.md). + For procedures, see [Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks](dns-failover.md). **Other Route 53 features** In addition to being a Domain Name System (DNS) web service, Route 53 offers the following features: **VPC Resolver** Get recursive DNS for your Amazon VPCs in AWS Regions, VPCs in AWS Outposts racks, or any other on-premises networks. Create conditional forwarding rules and Route 53 endpoints to resolve custom names mastered in Route 53 private hosted zones or in your on-premises DNS servers. For more information , see [What is Route 53 VPC Resolver?](resolver.md). **Amazon Route 53 Resolver on Outposts ** Connect VPC Resolver on Outpost racks with DNS servers in your on-premises data centers through Resolver endpoints. This enables resolution of DNS queries between the Outposts racks and your other on-premises resources. For more information , see [What is Amazon Route 53 on Outposts?](outpost-resolver.md). **Resolver DNS Firewall** Protect your recursive DNS queries within the VPC Resolver. Create domain lists and build firewall rules that filter outbound DNS traffic against these rules. For more information , see [Using DNS Firewall to filter outbound DNS traffic](resolver-dns-firewall.md). **Traffic Flow** Easy-to-use and cost-effective global traffic management: route end users to the best endpoint for your application based on geoproximity, latency, health, and other considerations. For more information , see [Using Traffic Flow to route DNS traffic](traffic-flow.md). **Amazon Route 53 Profiles** With Route 53 Profiles, you can apply and manage DNS-related Route 53 configurations across many VPCs and in different AWS account. For more information , see [What are Amazon Route 53 Profiles?](profiles.md). **Topics** + [How domain registration works](welcome-domain-registration.md) + [How internet traffic is routed to your website or web application](welcome-dns-service.md) + [How Amazon Route 53 checks the health of your resources](welcome-health-checks.md) + [Amazon Route 53 concepts](route-53-concepts.md) + [How to get started with Amazon Route 53](welcome-how-to-get-started.md) + [Accessing Amazon Route 53](welcome-accessing-route-53.md) + [AWS Identity and Access Management](IAMRoute53.md) + [Amazon Route 53 pricing and billing](Route53Pricing.md) + [Using Route 53 with an AWS SDK](sdk-general-information-section.md) # How domain registration works If you want to create a website or a web application, you start by registering the name of your website, known as a [domain name](route-53-concepts.md#route-53-concepts-domain-name). Your domain name is the name, such as example.com, that your users enter in a browser to display your website. Here's an overview of how you register a domain name with Amazon Route 53: 1. You choose a domain name and confirm that it's available, meaning that no one else has registered the domain name that you want. If the domain name you want is already in use, you can try other names or try changing only the *top-level domain*, such as .com, to another top-level domain, such as .ninja or .hockey. For a list of the top-level domains that Route 53 supports, see [Domains that you can register with Amazon Route 53](registrar-tld-list.md). 1. You register the domain name with Route 53. When you register a domain, you provide names and contact information for the domain owner and other contacts. When you register a domain with Route 53, the service automatically makes itself the DNS service for the domain by doing the following: + Creates a [hosted zone](route-53-concepts.md#route-53-concepts-hosted-zone) that has the same name as your domain. + Assigns a set of four name servers to the hosted zone. When someone uses a browser to access your website, such as www.example.com, these name servers tell the browser where to find your resources, such as a web server or an Amazon S3 bucket. ([Amazon S3](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/s3/) is object storage for storing and retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the web. A bucket is a container for objects that you store in S3.) + Gets the name servers from the hosted zone and adds them to the domain. For more information, see [How internet traffic is routed to your website or web application](welcome-dns-service.md). 1. At the end of the registration process, we send your information to the registrar for the domain. The [domain registrar](route-53-concepts.md#route-53-concepts-domain-registrar) is either Amazon Registrar, Inc. or our registrar associate, Gandi. To find out who the registrar is for your domain, see [Finding your registrar](find-your-registrar.md). 1. The registrar sends your information to the *registry* for the domain. A registry is a company that sells domain registrations for one or more top-level domains, such as .com. 1. The registry stores the information about your domain in their own database and also stores some of the information in the public WHOIS database. For more information about how to register a domain name, see [Registering a new domain](domain-register.md). If you already registered a domain name with another registrar, you can choose to transfer the domain registration to Route 53. This isn't required to use other Route 53 features. For more information, see [Transferring registration for a domain to Amazon Route 53](domain-transfer-to-route-53.md). # How internet traffic is routed to your website or web application All computers on the internet, from your smart phone or laptop connect to the servers that serve content for massive retail websites, communicate with one another by using numbers. These numbers, known as *IP addresses*, are in one of the following formats: + Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) format, such as 192.0.2.44 + Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) format, such as 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:abcd:0001:2345 When you open a browser and go to a website, you don't have to remember and enter a long string of characters like that. Instead, you can enter a domain name like example.com and still end up in the right place. A DNS service such as Amazon Route 53 helps to make that connection between domain names and IP addresses. **Topics** + [Overview of how you configure Amazon Route 53 to route internet traffic for your domain](#welcome-dns-service-how-to-configure) + [How Amazon Route 53 routes traffic for your domain](#welcome-dns-service-how-route-53-routes-traffic) ## Overview of how you configure Amazon Route 53 to route internet traffic for your domain Here's an overview of how to use the Amazon Route 53 console to register a domain name and configure Route 53 to route internet traffic to your website or web application. 1. You register the domain name that you want your users to use to access your content. For an overview, see [How domain registration works](welcome-domain-registration.md). 1. After you register your domain name, Route 53 automatically creates a public hosted zone that has the same name as the domain. For more information, see [Working with public hosted zones](AboutHZWorkingWith.md). 1. To route traffic to your resources, you create *records*, also known as *resource record sets*, in your hosted zone. Each record includes information about how you want to route traffic for your domain, such as the following: **Name** The name of the record corresponds with the domain name (example.com) or subdomain name (www.example.com, retail.example.com) that you want Route 53 to route traffic for. The name of every record in a hosted zone must end with the name of the hosted zone. For example, if the name of the hosted zone is example.com, all record names must end in example.com. The Route 53 console does this for you automatically. **Type** The record type usually determines the type of resource that you want traffic to be routed to. For example, to route traffic to an email server, you specify MX for Type. To route traffic to a web server that has an IPv4 IP address, you specify A for Type. **Value** Value is closely related to Type. If you specify MX for Type, you specify the names of one or more email servers for Value. If you specify A for Type, you specify an IP address in IPv4 format, such as 192.0.2.136. For more information about records, see [Working with records](rrsets-working-with.md). You can also create special Route 53 records, called alias records, that route traffic to Amazon S3 buckets, Amazon CloudFront distributions, and other AWS resources. For more information, see [Choosing between alias and non-alias records](resource-record-sets-choosing-alias-non-alias.md) and [Routing internet traffic to your AWS resources](routing-to-aws-resources.md). For more information about routing internet traffic to your resources, see [Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service](dns-configuring.md). ## How Amazon Route 53 routes traffic for your domain After you configure Amazon Route 53 to route your internet traffic to your resources, such as web servers or Amazon S3 buckets, here's what happens in just a few milliseconds when someone requests content for www.example.com: ![\[Conceptual graphic that shows how the Domain Name System and Route 53 route internet traffic to the resources for www.example.com.\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/images/how-route-53-routes-traffic.png) 1. A user opens a web browser, enters www.example.com in the address bar, and presses Enter. 1. The request for www.example.com is routed to a DNS resolver, which is typically managed by the user's internet service provider (ISP), such as a cable internet provider, a DSL broadband provider, or a corporate network. 1. The DNS resolver for the ISP forwards the request for www.example.com to a DNS root name server. 1. The DNS resolver forwards the request for www.example.com again, this time to one of the TLD name servers for .com domains. The name server for .com domains responds to the request with the names of the four Route 53 name servers that are associated with the example.com domain. The DNS resolver caches (stores) the four Route 53 name servers. The next time someone browses to example.com, the resolver skips steps 3 and 4 because it already has the name servers for example.com. The name servers are typically cached for two days. 1. The DNS resolver chooses a Route 53 name server and forwards the request for www.example.com to that name server. 1. The Route 53 name server looks in the example.com hosted zone for the www.example.com record, gets the associated value, such as the IP address for a web server, 192.0.2.44, and returns the IP address to the DNS resolver. 1. The DNS resolver finally has the IP address that the user needs. The resolver returns that value to the web browser. **Note** The DNS resolver also caches the IP address for example.com for an amount of time that you specify so that it can respond more quickly the next time someone browses to example.com. For more information, see [time to live (TTL)](route-53-concepts.md#route-53-concepts-time-to-live). 1. The web browser sends a request for www.example.com to the IP address that it got from the DNS resolver. This is where your content is, for example, a web server running on an Amazon EC2 instance or an Amazon S3 bucket that's configured as a website endpoint. 1. The web server or other resource at 192.0.2.44 returns the web page for www.example.com to the web browser, and the web browser displays the page. # How Amazon Route 53 checks the health of your resources Amazon Route 53 health checks monitor the health of your resources such as web servers and email servers. You can optionally configure Amazon CloudWatch alarms for your health checks, so that you receive notification when a resource becomes unavailable. Here's an overview of how health checking works if you want to be notified when a resource becomes unavailable: ![\[Conceptual graphic that shows how you configure Route 53 to monitor the health of specified endpoints.\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/images/how-health-checks-work.png) 1. You create a health check and specify values that define how you want the health check to work, such as the following: + The IP address or domain name of the endpoint, such as a web server, that you want Route 53 to monitor. (You can also monitor the status of other health checks, or the state of a CloudWatch alarm.) + The protocol that you want Amazon Route 53 to use to perform the check: HTTP, HTTPS, or TCP. + How often you want Route 53 to send a request to the endpoint. This is the *request interval*. + How many consecutive times the endpoint must fail to respond to requests before Route 53 considers it unhealthy. This is the *failure threshold*. + Optionally, how you want to be notified when Route 53 detects that the endpoint is unhealthy. When you configure notification, Route 53 automatically sets a CloudWatch alarm. CloudWatch uses Amazon SNS to notify users that an endpoint is unhealthy. 1. Route 53 starts to send requests to the endpoint at the interval that you specified in the health check. If the endpoint responds to the requests, Route 53 considers the endpoint to be healthy and takes no action. 1. If the endpoint doesn't respond to a request, Route 53 starts to count the number of consecutive requests that the endpoint doesn't respond to: + If the count reaches the value that you specified for the failure threshold, Route 53 considers the endpoint unhealthy. + If the endpoint starts to respond again before the count reaches the failure threshold, Route 53 resets the count to 0, and CloudWatch doesn't contact you. 1. If Route 53 considers the endpoint unhealthy and if you configured notification for the health check, Route 53 notifies CloudWatch. If you didn't configure notification, you can still see the status of your Route 53 health checks in the Route 53 console. For more information, see [Monitoring health check status and getting notifications](health-checks-monitor-view-status.md). 1. If you configured notification for the health check, CloudWatch triggers an alarm and uses Amazon SNS to send notification to the specified recipients. In addition to checking the health of a specified endpoint, you can configure a health check to check the health of one or more other health checks so that you can be notified when a specified number of resources, such as two web servers out of five, are unavailable. You can also configure a health check to check the status of a CloudWatch alarm so that you can be notified on the basis of a broad range of criteria, not just whether a resource is responding to requests. If you have multiple resources that perform the same function, for example, web servers or database servers, and you want Route 53 to route traffic only to the resources that are healthy, you can configure DNS failover by associating a health check with each record for that resource. If a health check determines that the underlying resource is unhealthy, Route 53 routes traffic away from the associated record. For more information about using Route 53 to monitor the health of your resources, see [Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks](dns-failover.md). # Amazon Route 53 concepts Here's an overview of the concepts that are discussed throughout the *Amazon Route 53 Developer Guide*. **Topics** + [Domain registration concepts](#route-53-concepts-domain-registration) + [Domain Name System (DNS) concepts](#route-53-concepts-domain-name-system-dns) + [Control and data plane concepts](#route-53-concepts-control-and-data-plane) + [Health checking concepts](#route-53-concepts-health-checking) ## Domain registration concepts Here's an overview of the concepts that are related to domain registration. + [domain name](#route-53-concepts-domain-name) + [domain registrar](#route-53-concepts-domain-registrar) + [domain registry](#route-53-concepts-domain-registry) + [domain reseller](#route-53-concepts-domain-reseller) + [top-level domain (TLD)](#route-53-concepts-top-level-domain) **domain name** The name, such as example.com, that a user types in the address bar of a web browser to access a website or a web application. To make your website or web application available on the internet, you start by registering a domain name. For more information, see [How domain registration works](welcome-domain-registration.md). **domain registrar** A company that is accredited by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to process domain registrations for specific top-level domains (TLDs). To find the registrar of your domain, see [Finding your registrar](find-your-registrar.md). **domain registry** A company that owns the right to sell domains that have a specific top-level domain. For example, [VeriSign](http://www.verisign.com/) is the registry that owns the right to sell domains that have a .com TLD. A domain registry defines the rules for registering a domain, such as residency requirements for a geographic TLD. A domain registry also maintains the authoritative database for all of the domain names that have the same TLD. The registry's database contains information such as contact information and the name servers for each domain. **domain reseller** A company that sells domain names for registrars such as Amazon Registrar. Amazon Route 53 is a domain reseller for Amazon Registrar and for our registrar associate, Gandi. **top-level domain (TLD)** The last part of a domain name, such as .com, .org, or .ninja. There are two types of top-level domains: **Generic top-level domains** These TLDs typically give users an idea of what they'll find on the website. For example, domain names that have a TLD of *.bike* often are associated with websites for motorcycle or bicycle businesses or organizations. With a few exceptions, you can use any generic TLD you want, so a bicycle club could use the .hockey TLD for their domain name. **Geographic top-level domains** These TLDs are associated with geographic areas such as countries or cities. Some registries for geographic TLDs have residency requirements, while others, such as [.io (British Indian Ocean Territory)](io.md), allow or even encourage use as a generic TLD. For a list of the TLDs that you can use when you register a domain name with Route 53, see [Domains that you can register with Amazon Route 53](registrar-tld-list.md). ## Domain Name System (DNS) concepts Here's an overview of the concepts that are related to the Domain Name System (DNS). + [alias record](#route-53-concepts-alias-resource-record-set) + [authoritative name server](#route-53-concepts-authoritative-name-server) + [CIDR block](#route-53-concepts-cidr) + [DNS query](#route-53-concepts-dns-query) + [DNS resolver](#route-53-concepts-dns-resolver) + [Domain Name System (DNS)](#route-53-concepts-domain-name-system) + [hosted zone](#route-53-concepts-hosted-zone) + [IP address](#route-53-concepts-ip-address) + [name servers](#route-53-concepts-name-servers) + [private DNS](#route-53-concepts-private-dns) + [recursive name server](#route-53-concepts-recursive-name-server) + [record (DNS record)](#route-53-concepts-resource-record-set) + [reusable delegation set](#route-53-concepts-reusable-delegation-set) + [routing policy](#route-53-concepts-routing-policy) + [subdomain](#route-53-concepts-subdomain) + [time to live (TTL)](#route-53-concepts-time-to-live) **alias record** A type of record that you can create with Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to AWS resources such as Amazon CloudFront distributions and Amazon S3 buckets. For more information, see [Choosing between alias and non-alias records](resource-record-sets-choosing-alias-non-alias.md). **authoritative name server** A name server that has definitive information about one part of the Domain Name System (DNS) and that responds to requests from a DNS resolver by returning the applicable information. For example, an authoritative name server for the .com top-level domain (TLD) knows the names of the name servers for every registered .com domain. When a .com authoritative name server receives a request from a DNS resolver for example.com, it responds with the names of the name servers for the DNS service for the example.com domain. Route 53 name servers are the authoritative name servers for every domain that uses Route 53 as the DNS service. The name servers know how you want to route traffic for your domain and subdomains based on the records that you created in the hosted zone for the domain. (Route 53 name servers store the hosted zones for the domains that use Route 53 as the DNS service.) For example, if a Route 53 name server receives a request for www.example.com, it finds that record and returns the IP address, such as 192.0.2.33, that is specified in the record. **CIDR block** A CIDR block is an IP range used with IP-based routing. In Route 53 You can specify CIDR block from /0 to /24 for IPv4 and/0 to /48 for IPv6. For example, a /24 IPv4 CIDR block includes 256 contiguous IP addresses. You can group sets of CIDR blocks (or IP ranges) into CIDR locations, which are in turn grouped into reusable CIDR collections. **DNS query** Usually a request that is submitted by a device, such as a computer or a smart phone, to the Domain Name System (DNS) for a resource that is associated with a domain name. The most common example of a DNS query is when a user opens a browser and types the domain name in the address bar. The response to a DNS query typically is the IP address that is associated with a resource such as a web server. The device that initiated the request uses the IP address to communicate with the resource. For example, a browser can use the IP address to get a web page from a web server. **DNS resolver** A DNS server, often managed by an internet service provider (ISP), that acts as an intermediary between user requests and DNS name servers. When you open a browser and enter a domain name in the address bar, your query goes first to a DNS resolver. The resolver communicates with DNS name servers to get the IP address for the corresponding resource, such as a web server. A DNS resolver is also known as a recursive name server because it sends requests to a sequence of authoritative DNS name servers until it gets the response (typically an IP address) that it returns to a user's device, for example, a web browser on a laptop computer. **Domain Name System (DNS)** A worldwide network of servers that help computers, smart phones, tablets, and other IP-enabled devices to communicate with one another. The Domain Name System translates easily understood names such as example.com into the numbers, known as *IP addresses*, that allow computers to find each other on the internet. See also [IP address](#route-53-concepts-ip-address). **hosted zone** A container for records, which include information about how you want to route traffic for a domain (such as example.com) and all of its subdomains (such as www.example.com, retail.example.com, and seattle.accounting.example.com). A hosted zone has the same name as the corresponding domain. For example, the hosted zone for example.com might include a record that has information about routing traffic for www.example.com to a web server that has the IP address 192.0.2.243, and a record that has information about routing email for example.com to two email servers, mail1.example.com and mail2.example.com. Each email server also requires its own record. See also [record (DNS record)](#route-53-concepts-resource-record-set). **IP address** A number that is assigned to a device on the internet—such as a laptop, a smart phone, or a web server—that allows the device to communicate with other devices on the internet. IP addresses are in one of the following formats: + Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) format, such as 192.0.2.44 + Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) format, such as 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:abcd:0001:2345 Route 53 supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for the following purposes: + You can create records that have a type of A, for IPv4 addresses, or a type of AAAA, for IPv6 addresses. + You can create health checks that send requests either to IPv4 or to IPv6 addresses. + If a DNS resolver is on an IPv6 network, it can use either IPv4 or IPv6 to submit requests to Route 53. **name servers** Servers in the Domain Name System (DNS) that help to translate domain names into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate with one another. Name servers are either recursive name servers (also known as [DNS resolver](#route-53-concepts-dns-resolver)) or [authoritative name server](#route-53-concepts-authoritative-name-server). For an overview of how DNS routes traffic to your resources, including the role of Route 53 in the process, see [How Amazon Route 53 routes traffic for your domain](welcome-dns-service.md#welcome-dns-service-how-route-53-routes-traffic). **private DNS** A local version of the Domain Name System (DNS) that lets you route traffic for a domain and its subdomains to Amazon EC2 instances within one or more Amazon virtual private clouds (VPCs). For more information, see [Working with private hosted zones](hosted-zones-private.md). **record (DNS record)** An object in a hosted zone that you use to define how you want to route traffic for the domain or a subdomain. For example, you might create records for example.com and www.example.com that route traffic to a web server that has an IP address of 192.0.2.234. For more information about records, including information about functionality that is provided by Route 53–specific records, see [Configuring Amazon Route 53 as your DNS service](dns-configuring.md). **recursive name server** See [DNS resolver](#route-53-concepts-dns-resolver). **reusable delegation set** A set of four authoritative name servers that you can use with more than one hosted zone. By default, Route 53 assigns a random selection of name servers to each new hosted zone. To make it easier to migrate DNS service to Route 53 for a large number of domains, you can create a reusable delegation set and then associate the reusable delegation set with new hosted zones. (You can't change the name servers that are associated with an existing hosted zone.) You create a reusable delegation set and associate it with a hosted zone programmatically; using the Route 53 console isn't supported. For more information, see [CreateHostedZone](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_CreateHostedZone.html) and [CreateReusableDelegationSet](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/API_CreateReusableDelegationSet.html) in the *Amazon Route 53 API Reference*. The same feature is also available in the [AWS SDKs](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/), the [AWS Command Line Interface](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/route53/index.html), and [AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/powershell/latest/reference/). **routing policy** A setting for records that determines how Route 53 responds to DNS queries. Route 53 supports the following routing policies: + **Simple routing policy** – Use to route internet traffic to a single resource that performs a given function for your domain, for example, a web server that serves content for the example.com website. + **Failover routing policy** – Use when you want to configure active-passive failover. + **Geolocation routing policy** – Use when you want to route internet traffic to your resources based on the location of your users. + **Geoproximity routing policy** – Use when you want to route traffic based on the location of your resources and, optionally, shift traffic from resources in one location to resources in another. + **Latency routing policy** – Use when you have resources in multiple locations and you want to route traffic to the resource that provides the best latency. + **IP-based routing policy** – Use when you want to route traffic based on the location of your users, and have the IP addresses that the traffic originates from. + **Multivalue answer routing policy** – Use when you want Route 53 to respond to DNS queries with up to eight healthy records selected at random. + **Weighted routing policy** – Use to route traffic to multiple resources in proportions that you specify. For more information, see [Choosing a routing policy](routing-policy.md). **subdomain** A domain name that has one or more labels prepended to the registered domain name. For example, if you register the domain name example.com, then www.example.com is a subdomain. If you create the hosted zone accounting.example.com for the example.com domain, then seattle.accounting.example.com is a subdomain. To route traffic for a subdomain, create a record that has the name that you want, such as www.example.com, and specify the applicable values, such as the IP address of a web server. **time to live (TTL)** The amount of time, in seconds, that you want a DNS resolver to cache (store) the values for a record before submitting another request to Route 53 to get the current values for that record. If the DNS resolver receives another request for the same domain before the TTL expires, the resolver returns the cached value. A longer TTL reduces your Route 53 charges, which are based in part on the number of DNS queries that Route 53 responds to. A shorter TTL reduces the amount of time that DNS resolvers route traffic to older resources after you change the values in a record, for example, by changing the IP address for the web server for www.example.com. ## Control and data plane concepts Here's an overview of the concepts that are related to how Amazon Route 53 divides its functionality into a control and a data plane. Route 53 service, like most AWS services, includes a control plane that enables you to perform management operations such as creating, updating, and deleting resources, and a data plane that provides the service's core functionality. While both functionalities are built to be reliable, the control planes are optimized for data consistency, whereas the data planes are optimized for availability. The data plane's resilient design allows it to maintain availability even during rare disruptive events, during which the control plane might become unavailable. For this reason, we recommend use of data plane functions where availability is important. For Route 53 public and private DNS and health checks, the control plane is located in the us-east-1 AWS Region and the data planes are globally distributed. Amazon Route 53 is divided into control and data planes as follows: + For Route 53 public and private DNS, the control plane consists of the Route 53 APIs, which allow you to manage DNS entries, including both the Route 53 and Traffic Flow APIs. The Route 53 console is located in the us-east-1 AWS Region, but if AWS determines that there is an impairment in that Region, the Route 53 console will be served by the us-west-2 AWS Region. The data plane is the authoritative DNS service, which runs across over 200 Points of Presence (PoP) locations, answering DNS queries based on your hosted zones and health check data. + For Route 53 health checks, the control plane consists of the Route 53 APIs that you can use to create, update, and delete health checks. The Route 53 health checks console is located in the us-east-1 AWS Region,but if AWS determines that there is an impairment in that Region, the Route 53 health checks console will be served by the us-west-2 AWS Region. The data plane is the globally distributed service, which performs health checks, aggregates the results and delivers them to the data planes of Route 53 public and private DNS and [AWS Global Accelerator](https://aws.amazon.com/global-accelerator/). + For [Route 53 VPC Resolver](resolver.md), the control plane consists of the VPC Resolver APIs that allow you to manage Amazon VPC settings, Resolver rules, query logging policies, and DNS Firewall policies. The data plane is the DNS resolver service, which answers DNS queries in your VPC, endpoints that forward queries to other resolvers, and the DNS Firewall data plane which applies policies to filter DNS queries. VPC Resolver is a regional service and its control and data planes run independently in each AWS Region. + Route 53 domain registrations are managed only on the control plane in the us-east-1 AWS Region. For more information about data planes, control planes, and how AWS builds services to meet high availability targets, see the [Static stability using Availability Zones paper](https://aws.amazon.com/builders-library/static-stability-using-availability-zones/) in the Amazon Builders’ Library. ## Health checking concepts Here's an overview of the concepts that are related to Amazon Route 53 health checking. + [DNS failover](#route-53-concepts-dns-failover) + [endpoint](#route-53-concepts-endpoint) + [health check](#route-53-concepts-health-check) **DNS failover** A method for routing traffic away from unhealthy resources and to healthy resources. When you have more than one resource performing the same function—for example, more than one web server or mail server—you can configure Route 53 health checks to check the health of your resources and configure records in your hosted zone to route traffic only to healthy resources. For more information, see [Configuring DNS failover](dns-failover-configuring.md). **endpoint** The resource, such as a web server or an email server, that you configure a health check to monitor the health of. You can specify an endpoint by IPv4 address (192.0.2.243), by IPv6 address (2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:abcd:0001:2345), or by domain name (example.com). You can also create health checks that monitor the status of other health checks or that monitor the alarm state of a CloudWatch alarm. **health check** A Route 53 component that lets you do the following: + Monitor whether a specified endpoint, such as a web server, is healthy + Optionally, get notified when an endpoint becomes unhealthy + Optionally, configure DNS failover, which allows you to reroute internet traffic from an unhealthy resource to a healthy resource For more information about how to create and use health checks, see [Creating Amazon Route 53 health checks](dns-failover.md). # How to get started with Amazon Route 53 For information about getting started with Amazon Route 53, see the following topics in this guide: + [Set up Amazon Route 53](setting-up-route-53.md), which explains how to sign up for AWS, how to secure access to your AWS account, and how to set up programmatic access to Route 53 + [Getting started with Amazon Route 53](getting-started.md), which describes how to register a domain name, how to create an Amazon S3 bucket and configure it to host a static website, and how to route internet traffic to the website # Accessing Amazon Route 53 You can access Amazon Route 53 in the following ways: + **AWS Management Console** – The procedures throughout this guide explain how to use the AWS Management Console to perform tasks. + **AWS SDKs** – If you're using a programming language that AWS provides an SDK for, you can use an SDK to access Route 53. SDKs simplify authentication, integrate easily with your development environment, and provide easy access to Route 53 commands. For more information, see [Tools for Amazon Web Services](https://aws.amazon.com/tools). + **Route 53 API** – If you're using a programming language that an SDK isn't available for, see the [Amazon Route 53 API Reference](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/APIReference/) for information about API actions and about how to make API requests. + **AWS Command Line Interface** – For more information, see [Getting set up with the AWS Command Line Interface](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/) in the *AWS Command Line Interface User Guide*. + **AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell** – For more information, see [Setting up the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/powershell/latest/userguide/) in the *AWS Tools for PowerShell User Guide*. # AWS Identity and Access Management Amazon Route 53 integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), a service that lets your organization do the following: + Create users and groups under your organization's AWS account + Easily share your AWS account resources among the users in the account + Assign unique security credentials to each user + Granularly control user access to services and resources For example, you can use IAM with Route 53 to control which users in your AWS account can create a new hosted zone or change records. For general information about IAM, see the following: + [Identity and access management in Amazon Route 53](security-iam.md) + [Identity and Access Management (IAM)](https://aws.amazon.com/iam/) + [IAM User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/) # Amazon Route 53 pricing and billing As with other AWS products, there are no contracts or minimum commitments for using Amazon Route 53. You pay only for the hosted zones that you configure and the number of DNS queries that Route 53 answers. For more information, see [Amazon Route 53 Pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/route53/pricing/). For information about billing for AWS services, including how to view your bill and manage your account and payments, see the [AWS Billing User Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/). # Using Route 53 with an AWS SDK AWS software development kits (SDKs) are available for many popular programming languages. Each SDK provides an API, code examples, and documentation that make it easier for developers to build applications in their preferred language. | SDK documentation | Code examples | | --- | --- | | [AWS SDK for C\$1\$1](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-cpp) | [AWS SDK for C\$1\$1 code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/cpp) | | [AWS CLI](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli) | [AWS CLI code examples](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/code-library/latest/ug/cli_2_code_examples.html) | | [AWS SDK for Go](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-go) | [AWS SDK for Go code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/gov2) | | [AWS SDK for Java](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java) | [AWS SDK for Java code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/javav2) | | [AWS SDK for JavaScript](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript) | [AWS SDK for JavaScript code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/javascriptv3) | | [AWS SDK for Kotlin](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-kotlin) | [AWS SDK for Kotlin code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/kotlin) | | [AWS SDK for .NET](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-net) | [AWS SDK for .NET code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/dotnetv3) | | [AWS SDK for PHP](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-php) | [AWS SDK for PHP code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/php) | | [AWS Tools for PowerShell](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/powershell) | [AWS Tools for PowerShell code examples](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/code-library/latest/ug/powershell_5_code_examples.html) | | [AWS SDK for Python (Boto3)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pythonsdk) | [AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/python) | | [AWS SDK for Ruby](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-ruby) | [AWS SDK for Ruby code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/ruby) | | [AWS SDK for Rust](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-rust) | [AWS SDK for Rust code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/rustv1) | | [AWS SDK for SAP ABAP](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-sapabap) | [AWS SDK for SAP ABAP code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/sap-abap) | | [AWS SDK for Swift](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-swift) | [AWS SDK for Swift code examples](https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-doc-sdk-examples/tree/main/swift) | For examples specific to Route 53, see [Code examples for Route 53 using AWS SDKs](service_code_examples.md). **Example availability** Can't find what you need? Request a code example by using the **Provide feedback** link at the bottom of this page.