Registration Backlog

1
Massive Scale Name Management Lessons Learned
from the .COM Namespace
Mark Kosters 20 Aug 1999
2
Outline

• Humble Beginnings
• Current InterNIC Statistics
• Issues dealing with Growth
• Future

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Humble Beginnings

• Sun IPC as a root server, Sun 470 everything
  server, ELC workstations, one T1
• 8 people on staff
• Much of the work was hand-edited to fit into the
  database
• Enforcement of rules by community - esp for of
  domains and gtld placement

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Cumulative Registrations
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Net Registration Growth
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Top-Level Domain Distribution as of March 31,
1999
Includes deleted names
OTHER
NET
0.0
10.3
ORG
6.8
EDU
0.1
COM
82.8
7
Domain Updates Per Month
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Telephone Requests
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Whois Queries by Month
Data was not available for this report
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Monthly Email Sent to Hostmaster Address
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a.root-servers.net Query Traffic
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What it Took To Build This

• Technology
• Queued System that is scalable
• HA solutions with failover
• Automate everything
• Authenticate as much as possible
• 24x7 NOC to detect/fix failures as they occur
• 200MB of bandwidth
• 200 Engineers/Operations to support it

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What It Took to Build This

• Customer service
• Fallacy is automating reduces customer contact
  with human support
• Problem is dealing with transfers based on
  authentication problems
• Records
• Registrant Name Change Agreements in a month -
  8,792
• Phone calls answered in a day - 4,800
• 1.8 Million pieces of email sent a month to
  hostmaster
• Staffing - 300 people

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What It Took to Build This

• Legal
• Was on the forefront of the domain/trademark
  battle
• The Knowledgnet case of 1995 brought forth NSIs
  trademark dispute policy
• Is a very controversial policy and not well
  understood
• To date, NSI has yet to lose a case
• Political
• As it got bigger, NSI received more scrutiny
• Domain wars ensued, Govt. involved, ICANN formed

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Future

• Competition within COM/NET/ORG
• Registrar/Registry Split
• Amendment 12 with the Department of Commerce is
  the driver
• Key Dates
• April 26 - test bed open to 5 registrars
  accredited by ICANN
• Jun 25 - unlimited registrars accredited by ICANN
  - postponed until Sep 10
• Oct 25 - show equal access to all registrars
  including NSI
• Shared registry is at www.crsnic.net.

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Future

• What is in the registry?
• Domains, hosts, and registrar info
• Registrar interaction with registry works across
  an ASCII protocol that is tunneled over SSL
• Overview is at http//www.crsnic.net/documents/SRS
  _Overview_02.pdf
• Who has helped create it?
• NSI
• Panel of Internet experts have convened to help
  critique it

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Future

• What other issues are upcoming?
• DNS security
• Better management of DNS zones with incremental
  change support built into the server itself
• Better forms of authentication to reduce customer
  support

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URL

• This presentation can be viewed at the following
  URL
• http//www.netsol.com/nsi/presentations/markk/9908
  twist