Amazon Route 53

Amazon Route 53 is a highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service. It routes users to applications by translating domain names into IP addresses, and it can also register domains and perform health checks.

Core Functions

DNS Management

• Hosted zones: Containers for DNS records
• Record types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, and more
• Alias records: AWS-specific record type for pointing to AWS resources

Domain Registration

Register and manage domain names directly through Route 53.

Health Checks

Monitor endpoint health and automatically route traffic away from unhealthy resources.

Routing Policies

Policy	Use Case
Simple	Single resource, no health checks
Weighted	A/B testing, gradual deployments
Latency	Route to lowest-latency region
Failover	Active-passive disaster recovery
Geolocation	Content localisation, compliance
Geoproximity	Route based on geographic distance
Multivalue	Return multiple healthy records

Alias Records

Alias records are Route 53's solution for pointing apex domains to AWS resources:

example.com → CloudFront distribution
example.com → Elastic Load Balancer
example.com → S3 static website

Unlike CNAMEs, alias records work at the zone apex and are free for AWS resources.

What We Like

• Reliability: 100% SLA for DNS queries
• Speed: Global anycast network for low-latency resolution
• Integration: Native support for AWS resources via alias records
• Health checks: Automatic failover based on endpoint health

What We Don't Like

• UI: The console can be clunky for complex configurations
• Propagation: DNS changes still take time to propagate globally
• Cost: Slightly more expensive than some DNS providers for high query volumes

Best Practices

1. Use alias records for AWS resources (they're free and support apex domains)
2. Set appropriate TTLs: Lower for dynamic content, higher for stable records
3. Enable DNSSEC: For domains requiring additional security
4. Use health checks: Especially for failover scenarios