Q: What is a domain?

A domain is the address that your organisation uses to announce the location of various services used. Domain names are normally in the form of “communityit.net.au”

Q: What does a domain do?

A domain holds a number of different records to identify ownership of the domain and verification of emails sent by servers on behalf of the domain holder.

Q: What are domain records?

There are various types of records including:

• MX - Mail Exchange record, where emails should be directed.

• A - Authoritative record, the default response to a domain lookup.

• TXT - Text record, used to identify ownership of a domain and other information.

• CNAME - Canonical Name, normally called an alias, used to direct services to other destinations.

Q: Why do we need a domain for a cloud environment?

A cloud environment needs to be able to direct remote users to the appropriate servers. Domain records are a robust way to ensure that all users will be able to access organisational resources from any location.

Q: What is domain management?

Domain management is the ability to add, modify and remove records from a domain. Community IT has a central console it can use to manage all domains that we have registered.

Q: What’s the difference between a domain and a website?

A website is a collection of pages stored on a server connected to the internet. A domain is the name that is used by humans to direct their devices to a specific server. A website normally requires a domain name to direct people to the server that it is hosted on.