[SOLVED] How to make a website accessible by entering a simple name in the URL for the Local Area Network (Intranet)

How to make a website accessible by entering a simple name in the URL for the Local Area Network (Intranet)

I have seen certain web applications where we can access by typing a simple name such as "accounts" in the URL field rather than typing a complete domain name "www.xxx.yyy\accounts".

I have a local area network containing around 150 computers and with a web server running on windows server 2008 R2, which can be accessed by outside and has a proper domain name. I want to publish few web applications to be used by the computers in the LAN. This should not involve any internet connectivity and users must be able to access the web apps by just typing a simple name in the URL field of the browsers. I know this is possible but I don't know how and what to read. Please give me some information. Must I establish LLMNR, or else NetBIOS, or even achieve this through the prevailing DNS configuration?

Thanks in advance.

Solution

If you have a Windows domain this should just work (e.g. http://computerName/), but if you won't you can establish a WINS server on the network - and generally that will help client PCs resolve names. Otherwise you can use an existing DNS if all your client PCs point to a local DNS server.