C16. The third section of the .org Proposal is a description of your technical plan. This section must include a comprehensive, professional-quality technical plan that provides a full description of the proposed technical solution for transitioning and operating all aspects of the Registry Function. The topics listed below are representative of the type of subjects that will be covered in the technical plan section of the .org Proposal.

[ICANN will extensively review and analyze this section of the .org Proposal. The content, clarity, and professionalism of this section will be important factors in ICANN's evaluation of applications. We strongly recommend that those who are planning to apply secure professional assistance from engineers and/or other technical consultants to aid in the formulation of the technical plan and the preparation of the technical plan section of the .org Proposal.]

Dot Org Foundation is committed to providing the highest possible levels of stability, security and performance, both during the transition period and in the ongoing operation of the .org registry.  Because Registry Advantage shares a dedication to these goals, the Foundation has selected Registry Advantage to manage the Registry Function and other core services.  The registry infrastructure has been designed by combining state of the art hardware with sophisticated software and proven operational practices.  These technical systems and facilities ensure the high levels of reliability, functionality and performance required to provide the quality of service demanded by registrars, registrants, and the Internet community in general.  Registry Advantage’s experience and resources assure that it can also provide the stability and readiness required by the challenging transition process.

Today, the .org TLD contains over 2.7 million second-level domain names, and ICANN has indicated that its first priority is preserving a stable, well-functioning .org registry for current and future registrants.  This requirement is complicated by the need to ensure a smooth transition between registry operators by January 1, 2003, and to provide multi-protocol access to the Shared Registry System (SRS).  The operational requirements of the .org registry are complicated by the need for coordination with VeriSign.  This transition must be accomplished with minimal disruption to the registry’s operations (including zero downtime for critical subsystems such as DNS) and with no data loss.  To reliably achieve these goals, a strong theoretical registry design is not sufficient; instead, the successful applicant must demonstrate real world experience and a proven capacity to both operate a large registry and accomplish a complicated migration.  

Registry Advantage is an experienced registry operator and has the systems, facilities and personnel in place today to operate a stable, well-functioning .org registry.  Registry Advantage is an independent division of Register.com and has built upon Register.com’s experience as one of the world’s largest providers of DNS services by creating a high-performance DNS server specifically optimized for registry operations.  This software is tightly coupled to Whois, SRS and account management systems that currently provide registry services to a number of functioning ccTLDs.  In addition, Registry Advantage has formulated a clear, methodological transition plan for the .org registry with established and verifiable milestones.  As described in C18.6, this transition plan is based on Registry Advantage’s unique experience of performing migrations of entire top level domain name registries from existing operators to its own infrastructure.

The Registry Advantage systems have been proven capable of supporting the .org registry.  As described in Section C17.10 and Attachment I, Registry Advantage has conducted extensive testing of its systems to demonstrate that they have the capacity, performance and reliability required by the .org TLD.  These same tests demonstrate the capability to rapidly and successfully migrate the entire .org data set to its own systems.  This parallels Registry Advantage’s results transitioning ccTLD registry operations in which all data was migrated with zero downtime and zero data loss.

Finally, Registry Advantage is committed to providing the world’s best registry.  This commitment is not just a verbal promise.  As described in Section C28, the robust registry systems provide Dot Org Foundation with the confidence to offer service level commitments that are simply the best in the industry, meeting or exceeding the highest service level metrics offered by any TLD registry operator today.  Similarly, Registry Advantage has committed to the DotOrg Foundation to back up the service level commitments that ICANN requires from the Foundation in the Registry Agreement.