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Article Summary: This article provides information on the purpose and functionality of the GlobalNames DNS forward lookup zone in Windows Server 2008 and later versions.

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In modern local-area networks, as well as on the internet, computers are identified by fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) consisting of a host name and a domain name. The domain name typically comprises two labels, as in www.dell.com (in which www is the host name and dell.com is a two-label domain name), but it may contain three or more. Sometimes you may find it convenient to use short, single-label names to represent longer FQDNs. The GlobalNames DNS zone, introduced in Windows Server 2008, exists for this purpose.

The GlobalNames zone typically contains only alias (CNAME) records. The data in each CNAME record consists of the FQDN of the particular host it corresponds to, while the name of the record is the single-label name that will represent that host. For example, if your company has a website at www.mycompany.com, you may create a CNAME record named web with that FQDN in its data field. Your users could then access that site by simply typing web in their browsers.

The procedure for creating a GlobalNames zone in Windows Server is as follows:

1. In the DNS console, right-click Forward Lookup Zones and select New Zone.
2. Follow the prompts in the New Zone wizard to create the zone. The zone must be named GlobalNames.
3. For best results, make the zone AD-integrated and configure it to replicate to every DNS server in the forest.
4. Enable GlobalNames support by typing the following at an administrative command prompt:
   
   dnscmd /config /enableglobalnamessupport 1

The final step is crucial, as the GlobalNames zone will not function without it. Once the zone is created, simply create CNAME records within it for every FQDN that you want to abbreviate. There's one very important caveat to using the GlobalNames zone: the CNAME records within it cannot be dynamically updated, so they should only correspond to machines with static IP addresses.

For more information on the GlobalNames zone, see the TechNet article Deploying a GlobalNames Zone.

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