In Domain Name System (DNS), a DNS namespace can be divided into zones. The zones store name information about one or more DNS domains. For each DNS domain name that is included in a zone, the zone becomes the authoritative source for information about that domain.
A zone starts as a storage database for a single DNS domain name. If other domains are added below the domain that is used to create the zone, these domains can either be part of the same zone or belong to another zone.
Forward lookup zones provide name-to-address resolution. Reverse lookup zones are optional, and they provide address-to-name resolution.
You can deploy a specially named forward lookup zone, called GlobalNames, to provide name resolution of single-label names, (that is, names that do not contain the name of the parent domain) when you cannot use Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) or suffix search lists.
The following topics briefly explain zones. These topics also explain how to create zones and remove them from the DNS namespace.