C17.14. System outage prevention. Procedures for problem detection, redundancy of all systems, back up power supply, facility security, technical security, availability of back up software, operating system, and hardware, system monitoring, technical maintenance staff, server locations.

Procedures for problem detection

For a full specification of how problems are detected please see section 17.13 above as detecting problems is part of maintaining a high QOS.

Redundancy of all systems

Backup power supply

Systems will be located in a reliable Data Center(s) that has the facilities to maintain power to all essential equipment at all times.  During outages power to equipment will be provided by UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) systems, and power generators.

Facility Security

Facility is used for housing of equipment will have the following security features in place:

-          Limited access to authorized personnel with appropriate identification

-          Electronic high security, monitored systems will be installed on site

-          Video Surveillance will be installed overlooking equipment, as well as access to equipment where required

-          Data centers and computer rooms supporting critical company activities require effective physical security. The selection and design of the site must take into account the possibility of damage from fire, flooding, explosions, civil unrest and other forms of natural and man made disaster. Consideration must be given to any security threats presented by neighbouring structures

These security features aid in preventing system outages caused by malicious users gaining physical access to the registry systems.

Technical Security

Access to all systems will be restricted via firewalls, ssh connections only available restricted IP address ranges owned by Unity Registry etc, usernames/passwords, certificate verification. In addition access to any system local or remote will be rejected if originated from an unknown source. (See Section 17.9 above for a more detailed specification of system security)

Availability of backup software, operating system, and hardware

In house developed software will be constantly available from AusRegistry and can be supplied on any media depending on the requirement.  Such media will consist of tape media, CDROM, disk or via SCP procedures from AusRegistry’s development environment.

Multiple backup copies of all operating systems will be available at any time in case of an emergency.  Copies will be located each data center for easy use, these copies will be replaced when operating systems are upgraded with the current version used on the hardware.

Agreements and or contracts will be put in place to guarantee prompt supply of all essential hardware that is required for normal registry operation. Even though through the redundant design of the registry, service should not be effected in case of hardware failure, the required redundancy needs to be restored quickly and efficiently.

System monitoring

See details as described in section 17.13 above.

Technical maintenance staff

Registry Engineers will be on call 24 hours 7 days a week, due to the fact that the two companies involved in Unity Registry are based on opposite sides of the world, it is also convenient to note that just as the day ends for one company the day begins for the other. This means that it should always be close to normal business hours for any company involved. Each company will be required to supply competent engineers to be trained by AusRegistry as registry engineers, thus it should be very rare that a “midnight service call” need occur. However at any rate all registry engineers at both ends will be “on call: 24 x 7, the system developers at AusRegistry will be available by phone/Internet. Fully documented functional specifications of the registry software also exists with AusRegistry.

Server locations:

Servers are located in the secure data centers described above in the response to section 17.1