What is a primary and secondary name server?
Imagine if you wanted to find a book in a library – you ask a librarian for assistance but he can’t help you because he is too busy helping someone else. You would then go to another librarian and ask her for assistance because she is not so busy. You could consider the first librarian as a primary name server and the second librarian as a secondary name server. Domain names would still work with only one name server but the requirement to have at least 2 name servers has become a protocol (accepted standard) across the Internet. This is a back-up system so that if the primary name server is too busy or for some reason is unable to answer queries about a particular domain name, the secondary name server will be able to answer the queries instead. The information stored about a domain name on the primary and secondary name servers is exactly the same. The primary name server acts as a master and the secondary name server periodically updates information from the primary server.
Imagine if you wanted to find a book in a library – you ask a librarian for assistance but he can’t help you because he is too busy helping someone else. You would then go to another librarian and ask her for assistance because she is not so busy. You could consider the first librarian as a primary name server and the second librarian as a secondary name server. Domain names would still work with only one name server but the requirement to have at least 2 name servers has become a protocol (accepted standard) across the internet. This is a back-up system so that if the primary name server is too busy or for some reason is unable to answer queries about a particular domain name, the secondary name server will be able to answer the queries instead. The information stored about a domain name on the primary and secondary name servers is exactly the same. The primary name server acts as a master and the secondary name server periodically updates information from it.
