C - .ORG Proposal
Sections C1 to C16
I - General information about the applicant
C3. applicant's business and other activities
C8. directors, officers, relevant managers, and five percent owners.
Andrew K. Tsai, CEO and Executive Director
Earl Quenzel – Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Hakon Haugnes, Vice President, Product Management and Executive Director
Karen Elizaga, Vice President, Policy
Simon Sheard, Financial Controller & Secretary
Vidar Hokstad, Head of Development
Gertrude E. Bakel, Marketing Communications Director
Simon Hirst, Operations Manager
Paula Owen, International Sales Manager
Carlyle Europe Venture Partners
VeriSign Capital Management, Inc.
II. STATEMENT OF CAPABILITIES OF THE APPLICANT AND CONTRACTED SERVICE PROVIDERS
C11. overview: No response required
C12. Applicant intends to perform all aspects and services of registry function
C13. Other entities providing aspects of services
C15. Abilities of the applicant
SIgnificant Technical abilities and achievements
Registry Launch of .name and 100% Uptime
Major Registry Transition Performed by Global Name Registry in May 2002
Transition of Parts of the .name Registry to VeriSign
Operations of Large-Scale Email Solution – Nameplanet.com
Demonstrated Best-of-Breed Technical Results
Relationships with ICANN-Accredited Registrars
Demonstrated Experience to Work within ICANN Guidelines
Technical Organization and Abilities
Development methods and processes
Key Technical Personnel and experience
Access to systems development tools
The full legal name, principal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the applicant, and the URL of its principal world wide web site.
Full legal name of applicant:
The Global Name Registry, Limited (“Global Name Registry”)
It should be noted that to the extent necessary to comply with any laws, regulations or policies contemplated, the parent company of Global Name Registry may establish an entity separate from Global Name Registry to operate and administer the .org registry.
Principal address of applicant:
125 High Holborn
London WC1V 6QA
United Kingdom
Telephone and fax numbers of applicant:
+44 207 025 2200 (switchboard)
+44 207 242 9105 (fax)
Principal URL of applicant:
A general description of the applicant’s business and other activities.
Global Name Registry is the registry operator of the top-level domain, .name, which launched on January 15, 2002. Global Name Registry operates Internet services for the .name zone, including operations of the .name DNS and Whois, the .name MX servers and e-mail service, provisioning of registry services to the ICANN-accredited registrars and customer service and account management to the ICANN accredited registrars.
As an active participant in the ICANN community, Global Name Registry also uses its resources to serve the needs and interests of that community.
The applicant's type of entity (e.g., corporation, partnership, etc.) and law (e.g., Denmark) under which it is organized. Please state whether the applicant is for-profit or non-profit. If it is non-profit, please provide a detailed statement of its mission.
The Global Name Registry, Limited is a private limited company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales (registered number: 4076112). It is a wholly owned subsidiary of GNR Limited, which is also a private limited company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales (registered number: 3895286). The certificates of incorporation of both companies are attached as Appendix 02 to this application.
Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number (if any) of the applicant).
Global Name Registry does not currently have a Dun & Bradstreet number
The number of employees currently employed by the applicant.
Global Name Registry currently employs 44 people in London and 5 people in Norway. In addition, Global Name Registry uses the services of a marketing agency and a public relations firm in New York, which renders the equivalent of an additional 4 full time equivalent employees.
The applicant’s total revenue (In US dollars) in the last-ended fiscal year.
Because Global Name Registry initiated its operations with respect to .name on January 15, 2002, it had no material revenue in the last-ended fiscal year (31 December 2001).
Full names and positions of (i) all directors, (ii) all officers, (iii) all relevant managers, and (iv) any persons or entities owning five percent or more of the applicant.
i. Directors:
The following directors are also directors of Global Name Registry’s parent company, GNR Limited.
1. Andrew Tsai (CEO)
2. Hakon Haugnes
3. Karl-Christian Agerup
4. Hossam Galal
5. Bjarne Lie
6. Joseph Ansanelli
7. Andreas Schmidt (final Board approval pending)
Each director’s bio is summarized below:
Mr. Tsai is Chief Executive Officer and Director of Global Name Registry. Prior to joining Global Name Registry, Mr. Tsai was President and Director of Urbanfetch Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Urbanfetch Inc., where he had responsibility for all international operations. Before Urbanfetch, Mr. Tsai was a co-founder, principal and Chief Investment Officer for Integrity Capital Management, L.L.C., an asset management company with $300mm in assets and over $5B in invested positions across the worlds' equity, fixed-income, currency and commodity markets. Prior to Integrity, Mr. Tsai was a Vice President and head of the German government fixed-income trading operations at Lehman Brothers International (London). Mr. Tsai graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics and a concentration in finance and entrepreneurial management.
Mr. Haugnes is a co-founder and Director of Global Name Registry and Vice President Product Management. Under his direction and leadership, Global Name Registry applied and successfully won the rights to the .name gTLD. Prior to co-founding Global Name Registry, Mr. Haugnes was a co-founder of Nameplanet, Ltd. where he served on the management committee. Before Nameplanet, Mr. Haugnes worked at the Norwegian Defense HQ as an information technology strategist and project coordinator. Mr. Haugnes also worked at Alcatel Telecom in business development for wireless services. Mr. Haugnes graduated with an M.Sc in Cybernetics (Honors) from a joint program at Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTNU) and Institut National des Sciences Appliquees de Toulouse (INSA) France.
Mr. Agerup co-founded Northzone Ventures with Ingar Østby in 1994. Prior to joining Northzone, Mr. Agerup co-founded the Internet start-ups Hugin AS, Arakno AS and Intergate AS. Mr. Agerup was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Co and worked as an analyst at Milipore Corp in Boston, Massachusetts. He holds an M.Sc. in Business Administration from Copenhagen School of Economics and an MBA from MIT Sloan School (1990). Mr. Agerup notably was the driving force in establishing the network for First Tuesdays in Norway.
Mr. Galal leads telecommunications and networking technology investments for Carlyle European Venture Partners (CEVP). Prior to joining Carlyle in April 2000, he made telecommunications technology venture investments for Deutsche Bank. Mr. Galal has invested in companies across the telco/cable infrastructure, wireless infrastructure and data networking sectors. Prior to this, Mr. Galal was part of the corporate advisory group at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell working on M&A and capital markets financings. Mr. Galal began his career working with AT&T in the United States. He is a summa cum laude graduate of the City University of New York, with a degree in Computer Science/Engineering. Mr. Galal also holds a Doctorate from Harvard Business School and is the author of numerous articles in the areas of management, business strategy and computer science.
Mr. Lie’s professional history includes Four Seasons Venture (partner & co-founder). Previous to Four Seasons, he was the Chief Operating Officer at PaperX, prior to which he worked as an associate at McKinsey & Co, UK, as well as Senior Project Analyst/Financial Analyst at Fountain Oil, Norway & UK. Mr. Lie obtained an MBA at Harvard Business School (Cand. Philol.), and obtained his undergraduate degree at University of Oslo/ European University Institute, Italy, B. A. (Cand. Mag.) and University of Oslo, Norway and Officer Candidate School - Navy, Norway.
Mr. Ansanelli has extensive business building experience and a track record of developing innovative technologies into successful enterprises. Currently, Mr. Ansanelli is an active advisor and investor in high technology companies. Most recently he was the Vice President of Marketing at Kana Communications during which time the company grew from $20 to $120 million in revenues and from 120 to 800 people. He joined Kana in August 1999 in connection with Kana's merger with Connectify, a provider of electronic direct marketing software that he founded and for which served as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Ansanelli also served as Director of Internet Product Marketing for Macromedia and has advised various companies including E*Trade, Netscape, and Classifieds2000 (acquired by Excite). Palm, Inc. acquired Mr. Ansanelli’s first entrepreneurial venture, TRIO Development’s Claris Organizer, which is now distributed as Palm’s desktop connectivity solution. Mr. Ansanelli holds three patents and received a B.S. in Applied Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Schmidt served as Board Member, President and CEO of Bertelsmann e-commerce group from 2000 to 2001, where he defined and developed the strategy for subscriber-based businesses and Bertelsmann’s 60 million DtC relations across all non-paper based platforms including mobile, broadband and online and convergence. Before Bertelsmann, Mr. Schmidt served as president and CEO of AOL Europe, and developed and executed new business models for AOL, including marketing, pricing, content and commerce, as well as defined and executed public policy efforts on all levels including EU, national governments and regulatory authorities.
Mr. Schmidt is a veteran executive with an MBA (Harvard Business School), who is passionate about his field. Through his professional experiences as a journalist, a magazine founder, and an editor along with his experiences in the early days of the Internet, Mr. Schmidt has a true understanding of the value and importance of content as a commodity. Since the early 1990s, Mr. Schmidt has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Internet and a pioneering advocate of the growing online economy.
ii. Officers:
The following individuals serve as executive officers of Global Name Registry:
1. Andrew Tsai, CEO
2. Earl Quenzel, Vice President, Sales & Marketing
3. Geir Rasmussen, CTO
4. Hakon Haugnes, Vice President, Product Management and Executive Director
5. Karen Elizaga, Vice President, Policy
6. Simon Sheard, Financial Controller and Secretary
Each officer’s bio is summarized below:
See Mr. Tsai’s bio above under Directors.
Mr. Quenzel brings old economy business values to the new economy arena. He joined Global Name Registry in April 2002. Prior to Global Name Registry, Mr. Quenzel served as SVP-Chief Marketing Officer for Priceline-Europe Ltd, where he oversaw development of the brand architecture and end-to-end customer experience for the European market. He successfully launched the business, which exceeded the US launch experience on all key marketing and business metrics, achieving a Top 50 eBrand Leaders ranking. Prior to Priceline, he held various Marketing Director roles at AT&T where he was accountable for developing and implementing the strategies and programs to create customer loyalty and retention value among AT&T’s 20+ million high-value customers. He later served as General Manager for AT&T’s $1.7B College and Military markets with P&L responsibility for three business units.
Before joining the telecommunications industry, Mr. Quenzel spent more than a decade in the US airline industry - including a succession of senior marketing posts at TWA, Eastern and Continental Airlines - where he was an early pioneer of Loyalty Programs and the business of consolidating customer information into large-scale databases and then leveraging the data to offer programs and services designed to personalize the entire customer experience. At Continental, Earl built the Onepass program into a frequent flyer powerhouse that was credited by “Worst to First” and the Wall Street Journal with helping to save the airline from bankruptcy.
Mr. Rasmussen is a co-founder of Global Name Registry and is the Chief Technology Officer. Prior to co-founding Global Name Registry, Mr. Rasmussen co-founded Nameplanet, Ltd. where he served as CTO. Before Nameplanet, Mr. Rasmussen was a co-founder of Imaker AS, a web content management systems provider. Prior to Imaker, Mr. Rasmussen was a founding investor in ScreenMedia AS, a manufacturer of wireless web pad devices. Mr. Rasmussen also co-founded Synaps AS, an optical measurement technology provider for the food services industry. Mr. Rasmussen is widely regarded as a leading consultant to banks, telecommunication, travel and content companies on technical development and implementation. Mr. Rasmussen graduated from the University of Bergen with a degree in computer science.
See Mr. Haugnes’s bio above under “Directors”.
Ms. Elizaga is Vice President Policy of Global Name Registry. Prior to joining Global Name Registry, Ms. Elizaga served as Executive Director of Urbanfetch, Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Urbanfetch, Inc. As one of the company's initial employees who helped to set up the company's London operations, Ms. Elizaga also headed up two of Urbanfetch's business teams (Business Development and Product Management) and was a member of the executive management team. Before Urbanfetch, Ms. Elizaga was an attorney with the New York office of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, primarily practicing in the area of general securities and corporate law, with a focus on investment funds. Ms. Elizaga obtained her law degree from American University, Washington College of Law in Washington, DC and a degree in English literature from Columbia University, Barnard College in New York City.
Mr. Sheard is the Financial Controller for Global Name Registry and has day-to-day responsibility for finance and commercial activities. Prior to joining Global Name Registry, Mr. Sheard was Financial Controller of QXL.com plc. While at QXL, he was responsible for preparing the company for its NASDAQ and LSE floatation and for putting in place the financial controls necessary to expand the business into 14 countries in two years. Before QXL, Mr. Sheard was financial controller for The Prince's Trust, and was responsible for all accounts, including four trading subsidiaries. Mr. Sheard was also a chartered accountant for Baker Tilly and served as audit manager. Mr. Sheard graduated from Kingston Polytechnic with a B.A. (Hons) in Accountancy and Finance and has been a qualified Chartered Accountant since 1991.
iii. Relevant Managers
The following managers provide direction and management to Global Name Registry’s various teams.
1. Vidar Hokstad, Head of Development
2. Gertrude Bakel, Marketing Communications Director
3. Simon Hirst, Technical Operations Manager
4. Paula Owen, International Sales Manager, Registry Services
Each manager’s bio is summarized below:
Mr Hokstad is the Head of Development for Global Name Registry, and has day-to-day responsibility for the software development. Prior to managing the design and development of the .name landrush system and resolution services, Mr. Hokstad wrote the prototype of the Nameplanet.com mail system and managed the further development of this web based e-mail solution which at its peak handled close to two million user accounts. Before working on the Nameplanet.com system, Mr. Hokstad was Technical Director at Screen Media AS, where he headed the development of the software for Screen Media's wireless Webpad from scratch. Mr. Hokstad has extensive development experience from a wide range of consultancies, development and development manager roles, and has spent the last 7 years working almost exclusively with Internet related technologies.
Ms. Bakel is Marketing Communications Director of Global Name Registry. Prior to joining Global Name Registry, Ms. Bakel was Senior Managing Director of Hill & Knowlton International Public Relations/Public Affairs in New York. Before H&K, Ms. Bakel was based in Dusseldorf, Germany, where she was Vice President Marketing & Development for GCI Europe, a division of Grey Communications Group. She was previously Manager North America for Dentsu/H.F.&P. Worldwide Marketing & Sales, responsible for the 2000 World's Fair in Hannover, Germany. Ms. Bakel began her career at Nike Communications in New York. Ms. Bakel graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a B.A. in journalism and a concentration in public relations.
Mr. Hirst has extensive experience with operations of large scale, mission critical IT solutions. Mr. Hirst is currently responsible for managing the day-to-day live operations for Global Name Registry, internal IT services, the Norwegian disaster recovery team and IT purchasing. He has 20 years IT experience working for Daily Mail Group, Fish4, AltaVista and Haymarket Group and has in-depth knowledge of the IT systems powering the Internet and the world-wide-web, from both hardware and software points of view. Mr. Hirst started www.fish4.co.uk as a development project in 1996. This site became the focal point for 95% of newspaper online classified advertising in the UK within two years. He also won several development awards for innovative use of new technology within the print industry, both on and off line. When Mr. Hirst headed the operational side of AltaVista's expansion into Europe and the Far East, he was responsible for building and consolidating data centers and teams, which resulted in successfully launching search in 15 extra countries within 6 months. Prior to Altavista, Mr. Hirst built a group wide online system for Haymarket Publishing (UK's largest privately owned publishing company) and migrated all groups on-line titles to new central system.
Ms. Owen has been with Global Name Registry since February 2002 and is responsible for managing relationships with .name ICANN-accredited registrars. Previously, Paula worked for Network Solutions, joining as their EMEA Business Account Manager and moving to EMEA Regional Manager. Her main responsibilities were to develop business from the Global 1000 companies and implement strategic relationships with Internet Service Providers and Telecom companies across EMEA. Ms. Owen brings a wealth of sales and marketing expertise to Global Name Registry, having previously been Regional Director at Cahners responsible for business development across EMEA region.
iv. Five Percent Owners.
GNR Limited owns 100% of the interests in The Global Name Registry, Limited. The following companies and persons own more than 5% of GNR Limited:
|
Name |
Position |
|
Northzone Ventures (3 funds) |
Represented by Karl-Christian Agerup, Director |
|
Four Seasons Venture (2 funds) |
Represented by Bjarne Lie, Director |
|
Carlyle Group (2 funds) |
Represented by Hossam Galal, Director |
|
VeriSign Capital Management, Inc. |
None |
|
Andrew Tsai |
CEO and Director |
|
Lars-Odin Mellemseter |
Former CEO and co-founder; no longer holds position |
|
Vidar Hokstad |
Co-founder and Head of Development |
Carlyle Europe Venture Partners (CEVP) is a EURO 730m Venture fund that focuses on investing in core infrastructure technologies and services. The investment team specializes in five key domain areas: communications technologies, communications services, software infrastructure, online business services, and online financial services. It is part of The Carlyle Group - the world's largest global private equity investment firm, managing assets of approximately EURO 12 billion through Venture, Buyout, High Yield and Real Estate funds in the United States, Europe and Asia as well as High Yield and Real Estate funds. The firm has a network of over 200 investment professionals working out of 20 offices spread throughout the world.
Northzone Ventures, based in Oslo and Stockholm, is an early stage venture capital company providing financing to companies primarily in the Nordic market. With typical investment of EURO 1 million to 4 million in the first rounds of financing, Northzone Ventures focuses on investments within the converging space of Internet, Telecom, Software and Services. Established in 1995, Northzone Ventures has evolved from being a startup in itself to become a significant long-term investor in Nordic start-ups.
Four Seasons Venture is the oldest and the leading venture fund in Norway focusing on investments within the Internet-, Telecom- and general technology-sectors. Four Seasons Venture invests in young growth companies, both in Scandinavia and internationally, with outstanding management teams. With 15 years of investment experience in high growth technology companies Four Seasons Venture has raised over NOK 950 million. Four Seasons Venture is part of the Advent International Network and work closely and co-invest with Advent's Technology Group.
VeriSign provides digital trust services-Web identity, authentication, and payment services-powered by a global infrastructure that manages more than five billion network connections and transactions a day. VeriSign serves as a gateway to establishing an online identity and Web presence, operating the definitive database of over 32 million Web addresses in a powerful platform that is the world's de facto standard in Domain Name System (DNS) registry services.
Provide the name, telephone and fax number, and e-mail address of person to contact for additional information regarding this application. If there are multiple people, please list all their names, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses and describe the areas as to which each should be contacted.
For all enquiries:
Name: Hakon Haugnes
Phone: +44 207 025 2206
Switchboard: +44 207 025 2200
Mobile Phone: +44 7950 02 7723
Fax number: +44 207 242 9105
Email address: hakon@haugnes.name
As stated in the Criteria for Assessing Proposals, "ICANN's first priority is to preserve the stability of the Internet" and "ICANN will place significant emphasis on the demonstrated ability of the applicant or a member of the proposing team to operate a TLD registry of significant scale in a manner that provides affordable services with a high degree of service responsiveness and reliability." This section of the .org Proposal offers the applicant the opportunity to demonstrate its ability to operate the .org registry in that manner.
Throughout this document, operation of the .org registry, including providing all associated Registry Services, as defined in subsection 1.16 of the model .org Registry Agreement, is referred to as the "Registry Function".
State whether the applicant intends to perform all aspects of the Registry Function, or whether the applicant intends to outsource some or all aspects of the Registry Function to other entities that will provide services or facilities under contract with the applicant. If any portion(s) of the services or facilities will be provided by another entity under contract, please describe which portion(s), state the time period during which they will be provided under contract, and identify what entity will be providing the services or facilities.
Global Name Registry intends to perform all aspects of the Registry Function. In particular, Global Name Registry will not utilize the current registry operator for any aspect of the Registry Function.
Identify by name each entity other than the applicant that will provide any of the following:
· all services and facilities used to perform the Registry Function;
· any portion of the services and facilities used to perform the Registry Function accounting for 10% or more of overall costs of the Registry Function; or
· any portion of any of the services and facilities used to perform the following parts of the Registry Function accounting for 25% or more of overall costs of the part: database operation, zone file generation, zone file distribution and publication, billing and collection, data escrow and backup, customer (registrar) support, and Whois service.
The identification of each entity should include:
C13.1 The full legal name, principal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the entity, and the URL of its principal world wide web site.
Not applicable.
C13.2. A general description of the entity's business and other activities.
Not applicable.
C13.3. The entity's type (e.g., corporation, partnership, etc.) and law (e.g., Denmark) under which it is organized. Please state whether the entity is for-profit or non-profit. If it is non-profit, please provide a detailed statement of its mission.
Not applicable.
C13.4. Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number (if any) of the entity.
Not applicable.
C13.5. The number of employees currently employed by the entity.
Not applicable.
C13.6. The entity's total revenue (in US dollars) in the last-ended fiscal year.
Not applicable.
Global Name Registry intends to perform all aspects of the Registry Function without outsourcing such function to other entities. However, Global Name Registry has partnered with the International Federation of Red Cross for the community outreach. This is described in more detail in Sections C35 and C38. The Red Cross part of the proposal is separately bound.
For each entity identified in item C13, please state the scope and terms of the contract under which the facilities or services will be provided and attach documentary evidence that the entity has committed to enter into that contract.
Not applicable.
Describe in detail the abilities of the applicant and the entities identified in item C13 to operate a TLD registry of significant scale in a manner that provides affordable services with a high degree of service responsiveness and reliability. Your response should give specifics, including significant past or present achievements and activities of the applicant and the entities identified in item C13 that demonstrate the described abilities. It should also include information about key technical personnel (qualifications and experience), size of technical workforce, and access to systems development tools.
After the .name ICANN Agreement was signed in August 2001, Global Name Registry built and launched the .name registry. The .name registry is among the most complex TLD Registries built to date because of the three-level domain structure (firstname.lastname.name), the .name email addresses (firstname@lastname.name), the defensive registrations (blocking domain names and .name emails) and namewatch registrations (monitors registrations in the .name space).
The .name registry was launched according to schedule on January 15, 2002, and the .name resolving services, Whois and registration interface have all maintained 100% uptime since launch, a claim that no other unsponsored generic TLD registry can make. Global Name Registry also achieved 100% uptime during the major transition described below.
Major European connectivity provider KPNQwest went into insolvency in May 2002 with almost immediate effect. KPNQwest was the largest supplier of connectivity and other services in Europe, and its insolvency was significantly detrimental to many companies and ISPs on its network. KPNQwest started to turn off its support of these companies almost immediately after its announcement of insolvency proceedings.
Although KPNQwest was only one of three bandwidth providers to Global Name Registry, the hosting location was on KPNQwest premises, and Global Name Registry has to move operations physically upon two days’ notice.
Global Name Registry nimbly responded to the KPNQwest news, moving the entire .name UK site (the main site), including the registry database, DNS servers, Whois servers, MX servers for .name email, WWW servers for corporate webpages, registrar www interface and “family pages” (the www.smith.name pages) over a three day period, not experiencing any downtime to the functionality of the registry.
To move its operation without adverse effect to the registry function, Global Name Registry did the following:
1. Set up extra redundancy on one day’s notice on its hosting centre in Hong Kong. This involved installing new servers, installing MX forwarding software, and putting the increased redundancy live.
2. Failed over ALL services from the UK site to the Norwegian site, which instantly provided active services. Global Name Registry experienced absolutely NO downtime in connection with ANY service.
3. Global Name Registry took down the entire UK main site.
4. Global Name Registry physically moved the entire server park of the main site, including a 1.2 ton ESS storage solution to another hosting location owned by Global Switch.
5. Global Name Registry reconnected the system, and brought the system back up.
6. Global Name Registry failed the Norwegian site back to the UK, again experiencing no downtime.
Due to the training and experience of the Global Name Registry team, the physical move (and inherent disconnection) of the entire UK main site went without any service interruption. This very recent success should give ICANN confidence that Global Name Registry is exceedingly suitable for undertaking a transition of the .org registry, as the experience has made Global Name Registry even more confident of future registry operations and transitions.
In May/June 2002, Global Name Registry merged part of its system onto a platform operated for Global Name Registry by VeriSign Global Registry Services (“VeriSign”) in connection with an outsourcing agreement for .name. Global Name Registry and VeriSign run similar and redundant services on each side of the Atlantic and have thereby created the world’s first inter-continental registry. This gives rise to higher robustness and reliability for the .name registry.
The creation of this redundant and replicated registry involved processes and steps similar to the transition procedure described in Section C18.
The experience gained in this set-up will contribute immensely to the ease of transition in connection with the .org registry. Both Global Name Registry’s and VeriSign’s comprehension of and experience with the other company’s development process is likely to contribute significantly to the ability of both parties to effect a smooth transition. Global Name Registry believes that this is a critical characteristic of the Global Name Registry application, which distinguishes it from the balance of the applications that are likely to be submitted.
It is important to note, however, while Global Name Registry’s working experience with VeriSign is an asset to ensuring the smooth and stable transition process regarding .org, following such transition process, VeriSign will not be providing any services to Global Name Registry in respect of .org. As stated in Section C12, Global Name Registry intends to perform all aspects of the Registry Function itself.
Prior to winning the license to operate and administer, and to building and launching, the .name Registry, Global Name Registry operated an email solution under the name Nameplanet (the assets and licenses associated with this email solution have since been sold). Nameplanet was founded by Global Name Registry founders in 1999 and with the reliable and stable technology and innovative functionality offered, saw its user base grow from zero to almost 2 million users in 18 months. Due to an extremely scalable technology which was built to handle more than 50 million email users on web mail, IMAP and POP, the service enjoyed more than 99.5% update during its entire operating history, and served more than 40 million email views every month.
During operations, Nameplanet provided end user customer support in 8 languages to its global user base. Global Name Registry sold the Nameplanet user base in the fall of 2001 to focus on the build-up and operations of the .name registry.
The “Sunrise” Defensive Registrations (“DRs”) of .name have been a success. The DR, for trademark owners, blocks the registration of a name or several names, rather than a resolving as an actual domain name.
To date, no reports have been made of any fraudulent registrations of DRs, and trademark owners, for which DRs were designed, generally have not complained of abuses within .name. The DR was a novel concept introduced by Global Name Registry as part of the .name start-up to protect the .name space from illicit registrations and cyber-squatting.
Most importantly, the .name concept continues to grow. To date, the .name registry contains around 140,000 registered names (including both domain names and email addresses), and the thick .name registry with contacts, contains more than 350,000 objects. During the entire first six months of the operations and growth, the services offered by Global Name Registry have been exceedingly stable and efficient, consistently enjoying 100% uptime.
Global Name Registry has, in its infancy, achieved world-class, best-of-breed technical results, which are on par with the best performers in the industry. Today, Global Name Registry owns and controls:
1. A world-wide DNS network, capable of serving more than 200,000 queries per second, or 17.2 billion queries per day. Forty percent of this capacity is outsourced for .name, with additional capacity easily added.
2. A centralized Whois source for .name, capable of serving more than 300 queries per second, or 26 million queries per day. More capacity can be easily added.
3. A registry (partly outsourced) connected to all ICANN-accredited registrars through the EPP protocol.
4. A proven EPP client that has been distributed to all registrars, for use with both .name and also in use for the .info TLD; it is important to note that the C++ version of the EPP client was developed almost exclusively by Global Name Registry, and it also made significant contributions to the Java version.
5. A real-time update mechanism to update the DNS and Whois services contents seconds or minutes after database updates happen.
6. An active DNSO/ICANN and community participation through a dedicated policy team.
Global Name Registry highly values its customers, the registrars, and dedicates much effort and time to ensure that registrars are supported efficiently and professionally at all times. As described in Section C17.11, Global Name Registry also considers customer support (including technical assistance) to be vital to assist registrars in bringing new products like .name to the market, and Global Name Registry aims to work with each and every registrar to provide for a better end-user customer experience.
Working within the ICANN guidelines and participating actively within the ICANN community, Global Name Registry launched the .name Registry and has continued to develop and refine its policies and procedures for this TLD. This has included (i) working within the DNSO community (including on a task force and generally on the ICANN restructuring) and the gTLD constituency to frame and formulate policies for registry operations and domain name system processes, and (ii) working with ICANN-approved dispute resolution providers to implement a new and separate dispute resolution process for .name, the Eligibility Requirements Dispute Resolution Policy. During the entire process, Global Name Registry has solicited and received input from the community and has been responsive to its needs.
Global Name Registry has built an organization which focuses primarily on two tasks: (1) to design, develop, build and operate a stable, efficient and world-class technical system that can operate tens of millions of registered names in a DNS registry, and (2) to serve and assist ICANN-accredited registrars in using the registry services provided and to assist in offering registration services to their users.
As such, Global Name Registry has successfully launched the .name TLD according to plan on January 15, 2002, only five months after the ICANN contract was signed, in August 2001.
Technical Abilities: Development and Operations Teams
The technical organization is “layered,” just like the registry systems that Global Name Registry propagates.
1. The development team consists of highly skilled professionals with extensive experience in all areas, particularly where the registry needs competence, including DNS, queuing, databases, high volume transaction systems, etc.
2. The quality assurance (“QA”) team is a group of individuals, separate from the development team, the only task of which team is to verify that the software produced is of the highest quality and fulfills expectations. The QA team is dedicated to accuracy and security and will apply rigorous testing methods to each piece of software that is written by the development team. This ensures that software is thoroughly tested before put into production.
3. The operations team is a dedicated group of individuals who work on shifts to ensure that Global Name Registry’s Operations Center is fully staffed. The team is committed to daily support, all day, everyday, 365 days a year. The operations team ensures that the global transaction system operated by Global Name Registry is consistently works at optimal levels and also prevents and corrects performance problems by reallocating resources and monitoring the performance of Global Name Registry systems over the global Internet network in real time. This ensures that production software is constantly running to provide the expected services.
This team, and the additional resources that would be hired if Global Name Registry is selected, will also serve .org to fulfil its purpose.
Global Name Registry has been developing software over several years for critical operational uses. The methodology Global Name Registry uses to initiate and complete the projects ranges from standard Rapid Application Development (“RAD”) procedures (which are slow), to Rapid Prototyping (“RP”) methods (which are fast).
Global Name Registry has consistently written high-quality software, and by writing most of its software itself or using open source software, Global Name Registry can rapidly patch, rewrite, append or grow Global Name Registry applications. This also results in high quality services at a lower cost than if more traditional methods and software would have been used. For example, extensive use of the Linux operating system allows Global Name Registry to have full control of its operations and interactions with the Global Name Registry software, while keeping costs low.
In the RAD methodology there are five phases, which include:
1. Business Analysis: Focus groups and application design sessions are used to document the system requirements, business process flows, business logic, and system data requirements.
2. System Design: Software specifications are developed using object-oriented analysis and object-oriented design tools.
3. Architecture Design: The system hardware and software architecture is designed and documented. Then, hardware and software systems specifications and configurations are developed, often tested by the vendor, and finalized for acquisition.
4. Implementation: The applications software is developed for the target hardware platforms and operating system environment using object oriented programming languages, database development tools, and relevant programming languages. Global Name Registry has extensive experience with extremely high quality C++ which consistently proves to be secure, reliable and fast. Development test beds are built for software testing. The applications software is built and tested in increments with the functionality growing with each build from alpha to beta and to full production. The system hardware and software is installed in the planned data centers for rollout and acceptance of the applications software production release.
5. Growth and Maintenance: The applications software is successively upgraded in planned build and release cycles. Software incident reports are addressed in each build and release. Maintenance releases are developed for serious software problems that cannot wait until a planned upgrade release.
Global Name Registry has used RAD processes when the development can be planned at least six months prior to the need for the software. This methodology was used for many parts of the .name registry system.
However, in many situations, six months is an eternity in the Internet software world. Global Name Registry has, throughout its history (including Nameplanet), consistently made good software on much shorter timescales through the use of a RP methodology. In Global Name Registry’s RP methodology the following phases are central:
1. Business Analysis: Focus groups and application design sessions are used to discuss, outline the system requirements and business rules and logic required.
2. Architecture Design and Implementation: Software developers design software structured to fit the system requirements and the expected hardware to run the system. For this methodology, hardware specifications are always standard. Operating systems are always open source like Linux.
3. Prototype review: Review of first prototype with limited functionality. End-to-end test of limited functionality and expected input-output.
4. Full System Design: All outlined functionality is developed in daily cooperation with the system requirement owners.
5. Prototype Review II: Review of entire prototype and end-to-end testing.
6. Assessment of hardware and system specifications to software performance: Usually the expected hardware will run well on the software, given the developers’ experience with their programming languages and performance on standard hardware. Global Name Registry has extensive experience with extremely high quality C++ which consistently proves to be secure, reliable and fast (as evidenced by its development of the EPP client).
7. Installation on production hardware: The operational team installs the software on a “clean” set of production servers according to specification.
8. QA of software: Global Name Registry QA team analyzes software and its functionality, security, reliability, etc.
9. Production and Growth: The applications software is successively upgraded in regular update cycles, e.g. weekly. All patches, growths or patches are reviewed by the Global Name Registry Change Control Board (an internal advisory committee which ensures that such upgrades or modifications are safe), before being reviewed by the QA team.
Global Name Registry currently employs 15 full time developers and a staff of 14 systems operators, including systems administrators and database administrators. Additionally, Global Name Registry has consistent and easy access to experienced personnel, both through excellent human resource management and consultants, as well as through personal contacts and developers from its parent company, GNR Limited, many of whom have been employed or consulted to temporarily boost development capacity when needed.
Common for the entire technology team is solid knowledge of C++ and network programming, as well as significant experience with XML, Linux/Unix, GNU tools (gcc, autoconf, automake etc.) and CVS.
The following gives an illustration of the competence of the key developers and team leaders currently employed by Global Name Registry: (For privacy and security reasons, only the initials of the persons whose experience has been summarized below have been used in the following):
1. AH: Highly experienced with developing applications for efficient handling of high IO workloads. Comprehensive background with development of parts of mail delivery subsystem for NamePlanet, as well as the e-mail forwarding subsystem for .name. Experience at standards level and implementation level of several Internet standards.
2. AS: Key MQ series person. XML based middleware. Increasingly taking on more coordination / team leader tasks. Extremely experienced with XML, DOM and XML schemas.
3. AS(2): Active participant in EPP standards development. Wrote the C++ version of the .info/.name EPP toolkit. Wrote the .name C++ EPP toolkit add-on (both available on sourceforge). Very experienced and thorough at development level debugging and QA.
4. AS(3): Database specialist experienced with both DB2 and Oracle design and operations. Significant background in banking software. Highly experienced with design of transactional software with high integrity requirements. Designed the .name batch database system for landrush. Critical in providing design knowledge for the .name live SRS database system.
5. ZZ: Database specialist with extensive experience on Oracle design and operations. Background with Oracle consulting and high availability transactional systems.
6. EK: Extensive knowledge of custom databases, both in design and implementation. EK and team developed the .name Whois system from scratch. In particular, EK also has had significant experience in the development of a high performance scalable object-oriented database system optimized for a real time updated Whois system that can easily be distributed over multiple servers, and is entirely independent of our core SRS database. Also has great experience with queuing policies and software, in particular MQ series, including transaction management and queue management.
7. KF: Extensive knowledge of design and implementation of a Whois system from scratch. In particular, EK also has had significant experience in the development of a high performance scalable object-oriented database system optimized for real time updated Whois system that can easily be distributed over multiple servers and is entirely independent of our core SRS database. Additionally, KF has solid knowledge of “tarpitting” and other methods to prevent data mining over the Internet.
8. JA: Consulting background (IBM Global Services). Database design and development experience. Development of report generation subsystem, including ICANN reports for .name.
9. NC: Background with telephony systems and low level system development (hardware drivers, etc.). Experienced database developer. Development of report generation subsystem, including ICANN reports for .name
10.XH: Developed Escrow software for .name and holds a PhD in computer science. Highly experienced with XML and data design. Working on data scrubbing subsystem for .name that can be reused for .org. Data scrubbing development includes complex data mapping and integrity analysis to be able to detect and to a some extent automatically correct any data integrity issues that may arise due to hardware failure, software defects, or issues beyond our control.
11.RD: Experienced with DNS. Developing parts of the .name realtime dynamic DNS update mechanism. Experience with MQ series development.
12.VH: Valuable for skills in team management. Experienced at architecture design, XML, XML schemas and schema validation, standards level knowledge of a wide range of Internet protocols, including EPP and RRP. Implemented .name EPP extensions in Java (Sourceforge project). Seven years of network services development experience. Experience in developing C++ software for large scale high-traffic Internet sites and QoS management of traffic. Experience with DNS.
13.HO: 4 years of experience with security issues and development and operations of large storage systems and high-traffic Internet sites. Experienced with operational issues and low level system development and hardware troubleshooting. Development of network services.
14. TM: Experience in auditing Bind and DNS software. Solid knowledge of the DNS protocol. Did a large part of the .name realtime dynamic DNS update software. Experience with MQ series
15. EF: Seasoned and high level of experience as a developer and system designer and has implemented large scale, multi-user, high performance tools that are currently powering large Internet newspapers and Internet publishers. Has extensive experience with most Internet aspects of systems, including DNS, XML, security, databases, high-performance services, etc.
As a company basing its existence on developing and operating customized, fault tolerant, quality-assured and high-performance software and hardware systems, Global Name Registry naturally has access to state-of-the-art systems development tools.
These tools have been used extensively in designing, building, testing and putting into production the software and hardware systems currently powering the .name registry, DNS, Whois, Mail Exchangers and other .name services. These comprise the same tools used for most other critical Internet infrastructure developments such as Bind (of which many excellent tools are available as open source tools).
The collection of tools in used mostly span the following categories:
1. Project Tracking
2. Compilers
3. Visual Debuggers
4. Bug Tracking
5. Memory Leak Detection
6. Unit Test Frameworks
7. Documentation
8. Modelling (software and hardware)
9. Sizing (database, load balancers, critical servers)
A comprehensive list of tools and systems aiding in the development would be
far too extensive, but some of the key software is the following:
1. GNU toolchain: gcc/g++, autoconf, automake Open source compiler that is highly portable. autoconf and automake are tools to assist in providing high levels of portability between platforms. The GNU toolchain is available on almost every platform currently in commercial use, and thus provide an extremely well tested platform.
2. GDB: GNU debugger. The standard debugger for Linux, and the most commonly used debugger for most Unix systems.
3. DDD: Data Display Debugger Open source visual debugger with data graphing.
4. FlexeLint: Commercial tool. Code coverage analysis, semantic analysis, static leak detection.
5. Electric Fense: Memory leak detection tool. Open Source.
6. CVS: Concurrent Versioning System Source code version control / revision management. Cross platform. Open source. Used for a variety of huge development efforts, including Mozilla, and various Linux subsystems.
Support for ICANN-Accredited Registrars
The second component of technical support is comprised of Global Name Registry’s infrastructure to support ICANN-accredited registrars. In addition to the operations team described above, which also supports registrars, Global Name Registry employs 12 individuals to deal directly with registrars.
Global Name Registry’s registry services team consists of an international sales manager, account managers responsible for individual registrar accounts, customer services support, and project managers. All of these individuals bring with them to Global Name Registry a wealth of experience in sales and customer accounts. Most of them hail from Internet related service providers and therefore have keen understandings of the industry as well as with ICANN issues.
The registry services team is supported directly by the sales and marketing team, which, together with the marketing and public relations firms (see also C38), generates selling concepts and provides the marketing collateral for distribution to registrars to ensure focus on .name sales.
Particular to Global Name Registry’s customer service team is the technical expertise that lies within it. Customer representatives have solid knowledge and understanding of the technical issues and can translate concepts from the technical toolkits to registrars who may have trouble understanding the requirements of connections with the Global Name Registry system.