If You Have Your Own Local Area Network or Site Network . . .

. . . and that network isn’t connected to a larger network, you can probably get away without using DNS. You might consider using Microsoft’s Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), host tables, or Sun’s Network Information Service (NIS) product.

But if you need distributed administration or have trouble maintaining the consistency of data on your network, DNS may be for you. And if your network is likely to soon be connected to another network, such as your corporate internet or the Internet, it would be wise to start up your zones now.

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