Amazon Route 53 Domains is a domain registration service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is a component of the larger Route 53 service, which is AWS’s scalable and highly reliable DNS service. As a developer-centric registrar, Route 53 Domains differentiates itself by catering to the needs of developers and cloud engineers. It does this by integrating seamlessly with other AWS services by offering extensive Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to register new domain names, transfer existing ones, and manage your domain portfolios. Since its launch, Route 53 Domains has seen a steady increase in customer adoption due to the breadth of capabilities for domain management on AWS.

In this post, we dive deep into Route 53 Domains and explore the numerous benefits it offers to domain owners, and then we provide guidance on transferring domains to Route 53.

Benefits of Route 53 Domains

When you’re choosing a domain registrar, there are several aspects you must consider. The key aspects of a registrar such as Route 53 Domains are security, stability, supported top-level domains, DNS integration, and cost. We break them down by category.

Security and Privacy

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies enable you to create granular access controls for different personas within your organization, following the principle of least privilege. For example, you can create a role for personas that perform day-to-day activities, such as modifying DNS records, while creating a separate role for personas that manage the domain portfolio, such as acquiring domains. IAM empowers you to give your domain users only the access credentials they need to fulfill their roles.

Every management action taken with Route 53 is recorded in AWS CloudTrail. Many customers have requirements to capture and retain logs of all activity. Being security and customer-focused, AWS provides integrated capabilities like CloudTrail logging that keep you compliant with your security policies and industry regulations.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds an extra layer of security to Route 53 Domains by requiring users to provide multiple forms of identification before gaining access to their accounts and domain management functions. MFA enhances the protection of Route 53 Domains by mitigating the risk of unauthorized access. Even if a user’s password is compromised, would-be attackers lack the second form of identification needed to authenticate.

DNSSEC (Domain Name Security Extension) uses public-key cryptography to validate that the DNS responses received are authentic and haven’t been tampered with. DNSSEC can be enabled by companies looking to improve their security posture, including U.S. federal government entities and those that offer their services to them as part of the FedRAMP program.

When you acquire or transfer domains to Route 53, your personal information is kept private. This is commonly known as WHOIS privacy and enabled at no additional cost. WHOIS privacy protects your personal information from being publicly visible in the WHOIS database, which can lead to unwanted spam or identity theft. This feature can be turned off if you want your contact information to be publicly available.

Stability

You can’t predict the future of a domain registrar, although past history is a strong indicator of future performance. Since launching in January 2014, Route 53 Domains has continuously updated and improved, adding new features, enhancing security, and refining the user experience based on customer feedback and industry best practices.

AWS actively participates in ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the non-profit organization that oversees the internet’s namespace. Participation in ICANN reflects a commitment to operating within a well-regulated and governed domain space. It highlights AWS’s dedication to providing secure, reliable, and compliant domain registration and management services while contributing to the overall health and stability of the internet’s domain ecosystem.

AWS Support offers 24/7 technical assistance for domain registration and transfers. Refer to our documentation on how to contact AWS Support. Domain name management is fundamental to building an online presence, and AWS treats it as such.

DNS integration

Route 53 Domains integrates seamlessly with the larger Route 53 DNS service, enabling you to manage your DNS records from within the same console or programmatically through the API. This integration makes it easier to connect domains to other AWS services or external resources.

Route 53 DNS data-plane operations (resolving DNS requests) come with a 100% SLA. This is made possible by a global network with hundreds of edge locations, redundant infrastructure, continuous monitoring, and Anycast routing. DNS is a foundational service and is critical to the success of the global internet.

Route 53 includes health-check capabilities to monitor the health and availability of your resources. You can configure health checks to detect failures and automatically route traffic away from unhealthy endpoints or perform failover to alternate resources, thereby enhancing the resiliency and reliability of your applications.

Route 53 also supports various traffic routing policies, including weighted routing, latency-based routing, geo-location routing, and more. These policies enable intelligent distribution of traffic to multiple endpoints, load balancing requests across regions, and routing based on user location for optimal performance and availability.

Supported top-level domains

Route 53 Domains supports over 300 Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and is actively working to support more. Having a wide selection of available TLDs allows you to choose the most suitable TLD for your project, as well as properly address local users using domain names in country-specific TLDs. Moreover, it makes available popular domain names that might already be taken on the more commonly-used TLDs (such as .com, .net, or .org).

No registrar supports all TLDs. Different registrars establish partnerships and accreditation with various registry operators to offer domain registration services for specific TLDs. As a result, the TLDs supported by a registrar depend on the partnerships they have formed. A registrar that supports hundreds of TLDs indicates strong roots and long-term commitment.

Cost

AWS offers transparent pricing for domain registration. The prices you see for the TLDs on the AWS website are the actual registration and renewal costs, without any hidden fees. There are no long-term contracts, and everything is pay-as-you-go pricing.

If you are already using AWS services such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (Amazon ELB), there are price benefits from integrating AWS Route 53 DNS alias records with these other services. The integrations help optimize the costs and performance of your applications running on AWS. When combining these services on AWS, you avoid the complexities that come with using multiple providers and benefit from consolidated billing.

Transferring domains to Route 53

Organizations hosting infrastructure on AWS are particularly well positioned to use the benefits described in this post. The reasons to adopt Route 53 continue to grow, and when you are ready to make the switch, there is documentation to guide you. If you require assistance during the migration, then open a support case or contact your AWS account team.

If you prefer video tutorials, then there is an excellent Twitch stream with an in-depth discussion of transferring domains to Route 53.

Conclusion

In this post we talked about the benefits of Route 53 Domains, and provided references on how to transfer your domains to Route 53.

In summary, Route 53 Domains offers a comprehensive and reliable solution for domain registration and management, seamlessly integrating with other AWS cloud services. With its global network infrastructure, Anycast routing, and multi-Region redundancy, Route 53 performs fast and resilient DNS resolution for improved application performance. The APIs, broad TLD support, and transparent billing make it an attractive choice for individuals and businesses seeking a robust domain registrar. Moreover, the ability to consolidate domain management with other AWS services simplifies cloud infrastructure management, enabling users to focus on building and scaling their online presence with confidence. Whether you are a developer, a small business owner, or an enterprise, Route 53 Domains provides the essential tools and security features needed to safeguard your domains and elevate your online presence.

Use the Amazon Route 53 console and get started today.