🌍AWS Route 53 – A Beginner-Friendly Guide

#devops #aws #awschallenge #web

Introduction:

When building and deploying an application, one of the most important steps is making it accessible to end-users across the globe. This is where Amazon Route 53, a global Domain Name System (DNS) web service, comes in.Route 53 helps translate domain names (like myapp.com) into IP addresses (like 192.0.2.1), ensuring users can easily reach your application hosted on AWS or elsewhere.

Step-by-Step: Setting Up Route 53

1) Purchase a Domain

Buy a domain from a domain provider (e.g., GoDaddy, Hostinger, Namecheap).

2) Open AWS Console → Route 53

Go to Route 53 and create a Hosted Zone.
Enter the purchased domain name and choose whether it should be Public (internet-facing) or Private (internal VPC use).

3) Hosted Zone Records

AWS automatically creates SOA (Start of Authority) and NS (Name Server) records.
We’ll be provided with 4 Name Servers (NS).

4) Update Domain Provider Settings

Copy the NS values (without the trailing dot) and update them in our domain provider’s dashboard (GoDaddy, Hostinger, etc.).
This step links our purchased domain with AWS Route 53.

5) Create Records in Route 53

Add a new record (e.g., A record).
Set the Type (A, CNAME, etc.) and provide the Value (like your EC2 Public IP or Load Balancer DNS name).

6) Choose a Routing Policy

Select how Route 53 should route traffic (Simple, Latency, Failover, etc.).
Save the record.

7) Test Your Domain

Open a browser and type our domain name.
It should resolve to our configured IP or load balancer.

Route 53 Routing Policies

So we can learn more about Routing polices

| Routing Policy            | Description                                                                       | Use Case Example                                                          |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Simple Routing            | Directs traffic to a single resource.                                             | A small website hosted on one EC2 instance.                               |
| Weighted Routing          | Splits traffic across resources based on percentages.                             | A/B testing between two application versions.                             |
| Latency-based Routing     | Sends users to the region with the lowest network latency.                        | A global e-commerce site with servers in the US, Europe, and Asia.        |
| Failover Routing          | Routes traffic to a standby resource if the primary one fails.                    | Disaster recovery setup with primary and backup servers.                  |
| Geolocation Routing       | Routes traffic based on the user’s location.                                      | Directing Indian users to a server in Mumbai, and US users to Ohio.       |
| Geoproximity Routing      | Routes traffic based on the geographic location of resources, with optional bias. | Regional applications that want to prefer one location slightly more.     |
| Multivalue Answer Routing | Returns multiple healthy IPs for load balancing.                                  | Distributing requests across multiple EC2 instances running the same app. |

Hosting a Website with Route 53

Let’s say we bought the domain mytravelblog.tech from GoDaddy. we host our application on an EC2 instance with the IP 13.250.45.67.

Here’s how Route 53 helps:

We need to create a Public Hosted Zone in Route 53 for mytravelblog.tech.
Route 53 gives us 4 Name Servers.we update these in GoDaddy’s domain settings.
We need to add an A record in Route 53 with the value 13.250.45.67.
We need to choose Simple Routing so all traffic goes to this EC2.
Now, when someone types mytravelblog.tech in their browser, Route 53 resolves it to our EC2 IP, and your website loads.
If later, our site grows and we add a Load Balancer with Auto Scaling, we can update Route 53 to point to the Load Balancer DNS instead of a static IP — ensuring scalability and high availability.