The 'CA Registry Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

1
The .CA RegistryYesterday, Today, Tomorrow

• wwTLD Session, Vancouver
• November 30, 2005
• Norm Ritchie
• Director of Computer Operations
• Canadian Internet Registration Authority

2
Overview

• A Bit of History
• CIRA Today
• CIRA Tomorrow
• Summary
• Questions and answers

3
CIRA History

• 1987-2000
• 1987 IANA delegated .ca to University of British
  Columbia
• Canadian Domain Name Consultative Committee
• Founding Board
• Canadian Internet Registration Authority
  incorporated in 1998
• 60,000 domains in December 2000

4
CIRA HistoryFounding Principles

• Canadian Presence Requirements
• For Registrants
• For Registrars
• CIRA Dispute Resolution Policy
• Low barrier to entry for Registrars
• Competitive Registry

5
CIRA HistoryFounding Principles

• Protection of the registrant directly from the
  registry
• Registrants are the members of the corporation
• Competitive Registrar distribution model
• Operate bilingually

6
Keeping .CA Canadian

• CIRA takes Canadian Presence Requirements (CPR)
  and the integrity of registrant information
  seriously
• CIRA automatically verifies all registrations
  requests
• CIRA verifies all accepted registration requests
  manually
• CIRA investigates all complaints about Registrants

7
CIRA Today

• Thick Registry that currently has over 600,000
  domain names under management.
• Over 400,000 individual Registrants of which more
  than 300,000 are Members.
• Annual Elections and AGM
• Active in a Multitude of International Fora

8
CIRA TodayCanadian Marketplace for Domains

• At June 2005
• .com 61
• .ca 22
• .net 5.90
• .info 5.76
• .org 3.80
• .biz 1.40
• Total 2.5M domains

9
CIRA Today

• Approximately 95 Certified Registrars
• CIRA processes each day
• 700 Registration requests
• 6,000 Public Web page requests
• 13,000 TBR requests
• 600,000 WHOIS queries
• 75M-100M DNS requests

10
CIRA Today

• Our mission
• Operate the dot-ca Internet country code Top
  Level Domain (ccTLD) as a key public resource for
  all Canadians in an innovative, open, and
  efficient manner
• Major Focus Areas
• Open and Transparent Processes
• Robust and Resilient Systems
• No Single Points of Failure

11
CIRA Today - Making it Better

• Always On Registry
• Redundant Everything
• Automated Monitoring Systems
• Hot Backup Site
• Backups for Staff Positions
• Process Simplification
• Governance Reforms
• Quality Culture
• Continuous Process Improvement
• Service Excellence

12
CIRA Tomorrow

• Cultural and Management
• Quality, Quality, Quality
• Improving Existing Products and Services
• Improve and simplify processes
• CDRP review
• Corporate governance reforms
• WHOIS implementation
• DNS Robustness
• TBR
• Performance Improvements

13
CIRA Tomorrow

• Some New Products and Services
• IDN
• IPv6
• Enum Tier 1A
• DNS SEC
• Registrar Tools and Business Metrics

14
Summary

• Not unlike a business venture startup, CIRA is in
  a state of transition.
• Quality and Service are Paramount

15
Thank You

• Questions?
• www.cira.ca
• norm.ritchie_at_cira.ca