How would you respond to your classmate if they wrote:
DNS is a hierarchical, distributed database that maps logical host names to IP addresses. In the DNS name resolution process, a windows client examines its host file for the name. If the name is not in the hosts file, it examines its local DNS cache for the name. If the name is not in the hosts file or in the cache, the client sends the request to the DNS server. A windows user can verify the local DNS cache by using ipconfig /displaydns (Testout.com). I typically use this command at work a lot for users who are having issues connecting to out intranet website. To conclude, in order to make host name resolution scalable and centrally managed on a network, IP address mappings for FQDN's are stored in DNS servers. Using this method gives the user the ability to have a local database file to resolve personalized nicknames and to use globally distributed DNS database to resolve FQDN's (technet.microsoft.com).