How necessary is DNS Server to run an ASP.NET web app on IIS?

Question

Assuming a Windows Server 2012 VPS:

It seems that many tutorials include the setting up of DNS Server (setup of forward lookup zones, and A record) as part of the basic steps to deploy and run an ASP.NET web application on IIS.

I'm slightly confused, because within IIS manager you can set the bindings ( IP address, URL, SSL, port) of a web application. Wouldn't this alone not suffice to correctly route incoming requests to the correct web application?

What would be the advantage to running DNS Server?

Answer 1

IIS Manager can only manage IIS related Windows settings, but to make a site work you need much more settings than that.

DNS settings are critical to direct web browsers to your side. Nobody uses IP addresses to access a site, so a typical URL uses domain name. That requires DNS to translate the domain name to an IP address so that browsers can send HTTP packets to the proper location.

IIS Manager could not manage that for you, as which DNS product to use or how to configure it is usually vendor specific and out of IIS's scope.