DNS is the Internet’s phone book. The Domain Name System is what makes it possible to only have to remember something like “cnn.com” instead of (at this particular moment) “157.166.226.26”. IP address change all the time however, although less so for mega-level servers. Human friendly names allow users to remember a something much easier and less likely to change frequently, and DNS makes it possible to map to those new addresses under the hood. If you were to look in a standard phone book and you know the name of the person or business you’re looking for, it will then show you the number for that person. DNS servers do exactly the same thing but with updates on a daily or hourly basis. The tiered nature of DNS also makes it possible to have repeat queries responded to very quickly, although it may take a few moments to discover where a brand new address is that you haven’t been to before. From your home, say that you wanted to go to the InfoSec Institute’s home page. You know the address for it, so you punch it in and wait. Your computer will first talk to your local DNS server (likely your home router) to see if it knows where it is. If it doesn’t know, it will talk to your ISP’s DNS server and ask it if it knows. If the ISP doesn’t know, it will keep going up the chain asking questions until it reaches one of the 13 Root DNS Servers. The responding DNS server will send the appropriate address back down the pipe, caching it in each location as it does so to make any repeat requests much faster.