the .ca registry yesterday, today, tomorrow

The .CA RegistryYesterday, Today, Tomorrow

wwTLD Session, VancouverNovember 30, 2005

Norm RitchieDirector of Computer Operations

Canadian Internet Registration Authority

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Overview

• A Bit of History

• CIRA Today

• CIRA Tomorrow

• Summary

• Questions and answers

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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

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CIRA HistoryFounding Principles

• Canadian Presence Requirements

- For Registrants

- For Registrars

• CIRA Dispute Resolution Policy

• Low barrier to entry for Registrars

• Competitive Registry

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CIRA HistoryFounding Principles

• Protection of the registrant directly from the registry

• Registrants are the members of the corporation

• Competitive Registrar distribution model

• Operate bilingually

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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

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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

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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

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com

ca

net

info

org

biz

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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

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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

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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

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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

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CIRA Tomorrow

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

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Summary

• Not unlike a business venture startup, CIRA is in a state of transition.

• Quality and Service are Paramount

Thank You

Questions?www.cira.ca

norm.ritchie@cira.ca