The acronym DNS stands for Domain Name System, and its purpose is to translate human-readable addresses, domains, into the numerical locations of computers, IPs. In other words, it will translate techlogist.net to 178.32.205.96.
Among the advantages, are the easiness of recalling web locations, changing IPs without affecting traffic and no reconfiguration needed on the users and visitors side.
The way DNS works, in very high level overview, can be defined as groups of servers recursive and authoritative servers which upon request, lookup a list of all the IP to domain lists, and return the result to the requestor.
The concept of Dynamic DNS is similar in nature to DNS, as it allows for the translation from human-readable addresses to IPs, but with the benefit of almost instantaneous propagation of new IP’s to domains configurations.
Why is Dynamic DNS useful?
It’s useful to anyone who runs and hosts applications from home, such as small websites, games servers or even cloud solutions like OwnCloud, because most ISPs or Internet Service Providers, tend to change your routers public IP’s often. With a Dynamic DNS you can access your home network using using a domain name instead of an IP, and update the IP regularly and track changes.
Where to get Dynamic DNS?
Several domain registrars, such as OVH or GoDaddy, offer managed DNS services cost free with your domain, and there are even specialized companies offering Dynamic DNS, for example NoIP, Dynu or SPDyn, sometimes with a free plain.
How to update the IP?
There are a couple of ways, either in the DDNS provider web console manually, using the DDNS Updater application from your provider, or using the API protocol, more or less standardized across multiple providers.
