What is Amazon Route 53?
Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service from AWS that combines three central functions: domain registration, DNS routing, and health monitoring. The name Route 53 refers to the traditional DNS port (TCP/UDP Port 53) and signals the core function of the service: routing user requests to infrastructure.
Unlike traditional DNS providers, Route 53 offers deep integration with AWS services and intelligent routing policies that go beyond simple DNS. The service uses a global anycast network with over 200 edge locations worldwide and is the only AWS service with a 100% Availability SLA.
Core Features
- DNS Hosting: Highly available DNS for websites and applications
- Domain Registration: Register and manage over 300 top level domains
- Routing Policies: Seven different routing options for traffic management
- Health Checks: Monitor endpoint availability from global locations
- Resolver: Hybrid DNS for VPCs and on premises networks
Typical Use Cases
DNS Hosting for Web Applications
Host DNS for your domains with global availability and low latency. Route 53 Alias records enable seamless integration with AWS resources like ELB, CloudFront, and S3 without additional DNS lookups. Queries to AWS resources via Alias records are free.
Traffic Management and Load Balancing
Distribute traffic across multiple endpoints using weighted, latency based, or geolocation routing. Route 53 automatically routes users to the closest or fastest endpoint. Health checks ensure traffic only goes to healthy resources.
Disaster Recovery with Failover
Configure automatic failover between primary and backup resources. Route 53 continuously monitors your endpoints and automatically redirects traffic when failures are detected. Application Recovery Controller provides sub minute failover for multi region applications.
Advantages
- 100% Availability SLA as the only AWS service
- Global anycast network with over 200 edge locations
- Free Alias queries to AWS resources
- Deep integration with AWS services
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with Amazon Route 53: DNS architecture design, domain migration, hybrid DNS with Route 53 Resolver, health check strategies, and disaster recovery configuration.
Available Tiers & Options
Standard Routing
- Simple DNS routing
- Lowest cost
- Globally available
- No intelligent routing policies
Advanced Routing Policies
- Geolocation, Latency, Weighted Routing
- Health Checks with Failover
- Traffic Flow for complex policies
- Higher cost per query
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon Route 53?
Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service from AWS. Route 53 reliably connects user requests to infrastructure on AWS or outside. It offers three main functions: domain registration, DNS routing, and health checks.
Which routing policies does Route 53 support?
Route 53 offers seven routing policies: Simple, Weighted (traffic distribution by percentages), Latency based (routes to lowest latency region), Failover (primary/secondary with health checks), Geolocation, Geoproximity, and Multivalue Answer.
How do health checks work in Route 53?
Route 53 Health Checks monitor availability and performance of your endpoints from over 200 global locations. They can monitor HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP endpoints, validate status codes, measure response times, and perform string matching. Upon failures, Route 53 can automatically failover to backup endpoints.
What does the 100% Availability SLA mean?
Amazon Route 53 is the only AWS service with a 100% Availability SLA. AWS guarantees that Route 53 answers DNS queries without interruption. This is achieved through a global anycast network across 200+ edge locations and redundant DNS server infrastructure.