C17.12. Compliance with specifications. Describe the extent of proposed compliance with technical specifications, including compliance with at least the following RFCs: 954, 1034, 1035, 1101, 2181, 2182.

The solution proposed by UIA is fully compliant with all relevant RFCs concerning the NICNAME/WHOIS and DNS protocols. Because these protocols are complicated, especially DNS, and their technical specifications are lengthy, a complete description of technical compliance is beyond the scope of this proposal. Instead, compliance with the RFCs listed in the Request For Proposal (RFCs 954, 1034, 1035, 1101, 2181 and 2182) is summarized below. Additional details of technical compliance beyond what is provided in this section can be provided to ICANN or its agents.

RFC 954 is the core specification for the NICNAME/WHOIS protocol. The proposed WHOIS service for .org is fully compliant with RFC 954. Even beyond the RFC, UIA proposes a real-time updated solution that would keep the Whois data synchronized with the real-time updated DNS data.

RFCs 1034 and 1035 represent the core specification of the Domain Name System. Our proposal calls for the .org zone to be served by two different implementations of the DNS protocol suite, both of which are fully compliant with these RFCs. ATLAS is a proprietary implementation of a fully standards-compliant, high-performance nameserver, and will serve as the primary resolution platform. The attributes of the ATLAS platform are presented in Section C17.4 and Section C17.5. A modified version BIND 8.2.3, chosen for its stability and security, will serve as an emergency back-up nameserver platform in the unlikely event of a problem with ATLAS. This BIND platform is the platform currently serving the .org domain with resolution reliability exceeding six-sigma.

RFC 1101 describes the mapping between network names and numbers. While this RFC is listed as updating RFCs 1034 and 1035, its subject is operational in nature. In practice, the recommendations of this RFC are not widely adopted. In any case, the network number and name mappings described in the RFC reside in the in-addr.arpa portion of the name space and in leaf zones of the name space (e.g., somedomain.org). None of the records described in the RFC are relevant to the delegation-only nature of the .org zone.

RFC 2181 represents clarifications to the core DNS specification, and these updates to the DNS protocol are significant. Both nameserver implementations that will serve the .org zone, ATLAS and BIND 8.2.3, are fully compliant with the important protocol updates described in this RFC.

RFC 2182 describes the proper selection and operation of secondary DNS servers and has the status of Best Current Practice. This proposal is fully compliant with the practices described in this RFC/BCP. In particular, this proposal specifies 13 authoritative DNS servers for .org, essentially the maximum number that may be listed in an NS RR set. Each server has its own non-shared unicast IP address. These servers are distributed geographically throughout the world (as described in Section C17.1 and Section C17.5) at sites with high bandwidth and broad connectivity. Because of the large size of the .org zone, this solution does not use the DNS zone transfer mechanism to distribute zone updates to the 13 authoritative servers. Instead, this solution uses a proven method that sends incremental zone updates in a highly efficient compressed format to maximize reliability and reduce change propagation time. With the implementation of ATLAS, zone updates will occur within minutes of receiving the RRP transaction in the SRS.

 

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