ICANN | Supplemental Question #12 to .org Applicants

Supplemental Question #13 to .org Applicants

Supplemental Question #13 to .org Applicants

Supplemental Question No. 13:
(posed to all applicants on 12 September for response by 14 September 2002)

The Evaluation Team believes it would be assisted by having some clarifications concerning the database management systems that are proposed by each applicant. Although item C17.3 of the proposal sought information about database capabilities, not all applicants provided the same specifics in response to that item. Accordingly, each applicant is requested to provide answers to the following:

[a] Please state the brand (e.g., Oracle), product name, and version of database management system that you propose to use for the .org shared registry.

[b] Please describe the reasons that you believe that database management system is an appropriate choice for a mission-critical application such as the .org shared registry system. To the extent you believe relevant to your analysis, please address:

[1] Whether the database management system is open-source or proprietary;

[2] The scalability of the database management system;

[3] The functionality (i.e. command set and other capabilities) supported by the database management system;

[4] The level of performance offered by the database management system;

[5] The extent to which the database management system is likely to be supported throughout the term of the .org registry agreement, including such factors as a specific showing that it is used by many significant enterprises for mission-critical applications, the stability of the vendor (for proprietary products), the size of the community of developers and maintainers (for open source products), and the extent to which software engineers familiar with the proposed database management system are available to you; and

[6] the consequences to your operation of the .org registry in the event that your proposed database management system becomes orphaned during the term of the registry agreement, including consideration of the need to migrate, and the degree of difficulty in migrating, to another database management system.

Responses to Supplemental Question No. 13:

The DotOrg Foundation
The Global Name Registry, Limited
Internet Multicasting Service, Inc. and Internet Software Consortium, Inc.
The Internet Society (ISOC)
NeuStar, Inc.
The .Org Foundation
Organic Names Ltd.
Register ORGanization, Inc.
SWITCH Swiss Academic and Research Network
Union of International Associations
Unity Registry

The DotOrg Foundation

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Registry Advantage currently uses Oracle 8i (version 8.1.7). This will be the database product used for the .ORG registry initially. We plan to upgrade to future versions of Oracle's data server product to realize the benefits of such upgrades, upon determining them to be operationally sound.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice). Oracle is the RDBMS of choice for 3 out of every 4 Fortune 100 companies¹, and has the most trusted and reliable continuous availability model in the industry. Oracle's motto for its data server product line is "can't break it, can't break in", highlighting the industry leading security and stability of the product. Oracle also currently holds performance records making it the world's fastest OLTP server – a distinction it has held year after year. It is precisely because of Oracle's scalability, performance, functionality, commitment to open standards and platforms, and wide spread adoption throughout the industry, in addition to Oracle Corporation's stability as a database vendor and service provider, that Registry Advantage has selected Oracle's RDBMS as the database on which to run its registry operations.

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). Oracle is a proprietary RDBMS server that has embraced the open-source operating environment to the extent that it currently uses Linux as its own internal platform. Oracle was one of the first major software vendors to do so. Oracle backs up its commitment to open systems and open standards in its own operations, as well as its platform support and product offerings, including support for Java as a procedural language as an alternative to its proprietary procedural language. As with its operating environment, Oracle was one of the first databases anywhere to do so.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). There are no RDBMS systems that scale to a greater number of records, or to a larger total data size than Oracle. Furthermore, Oracle has embraced the concept of grid computing and integrated it with its current product offering, making it the first major RDBMS ever to scale to a theoretically infinite number of contributing grid based instances. It also holds TPC-C (423,414.41 tpmC ) and TPC-H (27,094.3 QphH@3000GB) benchmark records for speed, and at unmatched database sizes (3TB).² Oracle RDBMS can scale to enormous sizes without sacrificing performance.

Response to [b][3] (functionality). In addition to standard RDBMS features such as support for SQL92/99 data types and language features, Oracle has a very rich Procedural Language (PL/SQL), supports Java as a procedural language, can be extended with external procedure libraries, and supports extended data types and language features, is ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliant, and supports Multi Version Concurrency Controls (MVCC). It also has these important features:

High-end data warehousing capabilities;

Sophisticated query optimization;

Rich variety of integrated indexing schemes, join methods, and summary management features;

Partitioned tables and indexes based on range, hash or composite partitioning;

Parallel index creation and support for automatic index maintenance;

Scalable parallel architecture for SMP and MPP platforms;

Unlimited database size;

Architecture that supports thousands of simultaneous requests;

Online backups that can be made without interrupting transaction processing;

Extended backup/recovery subsystem, including online backups without interrupting transaction processing;

XML parsers;

User authentication and security;

Advanced resource management;

Full multilingual support, including Unicode UTF-2;

Database event triggers; and

Logging and archiving.

Response to [b][4] (performance). It is the fastest RDBMS available, and continues to top TPC-C benchmarks (423,414.41 tpmC) holding the top single server bench mark record, the clustered server benchmark record, the SAP Parallel Server benchmark record, and is the RDBMS of choice for the 10 largest OLTP sites on the net.³ In testament to its performance levels, Oracle is the only RDBMS vendor to ever offer cash awards to anyone who can outperform its server.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). Oracle is the most widely deployed RDBMS in the world. Many sectors - including defense, Internet, financial institutions, engineering and technology, and beyond – rely on Oracle databases of all sizes for mission critical operations:

Leading Internet security companies such as VeriSign,

Financial markets leaders such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley,

Aerospace leaders such as Boeing, and

Communications giants such as British Telecom.

Due to its extremely wide usage in such broad markets, there are more skilled engineers and administrators for Oracle than any other RDBMS technology anywhere. We have extensive in house experience with Oracle in both applications engineering and database administration, as we indicated in our application and in our response to supplemental question # 1. Oracle also has the largest outsourcing and professional services team of any RDBMS vendor anywhere – open or closed source.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Oracle is extremely financially stable and the likelihood of it becoming insolvent or unable to support its product during the term of the registry agreement is practically nil.⁴ However, in the theoretical case that this may happen, several factors would be likely to mitigate any operational impact. First, an extraordinarily large number of skilled Oracle workers would still exist, and be able to continue to support existing Oracle deployments in the same way the company does now. Specifically, Registry Advantage/Register.com have years of experience supporting large-scale domain name operations on the Oracle platform as it exists now, and could continue to do so regardless of the financial stability of the vendor. Second, even if Oracle were to become insolvent, its RDBMS product is likely to be acquired by another vendor that is likely to continue to offer support for the product. Finally, Oracle is the RDBMS leader, and as such is targeted by all competing RDBMS products. The manufacturers of every major RDBMS product, whether open-source or proprietary, compare themselves to Oracle, and have invested time and engineering expertise in migration technologies and processes to help customers switch from Oracle to their products.

Even without these technologies, Oracle's strong commitment to open standards and Registry Advantage's intelligent use of Oracle's open technology make transitioning from Oracle to another RDBMS a very low risk operation. Even in the hypothetical case in which there was some gap, as yet unidentified, in the ability to migrate to another RDBMS under these extraordinary circumstances, the global community of affected Oracle users would all need to manage some alternative. Registry Advantage is confident that if such a set of circumstances were to ever come about, we, and the rest of the world, would be able to successfully deal with any obstacles to a successful transition to an alternative RDBMS.

Notes to DotOrg Foundation Response:

1. According to Oracle's web site at http://www.oracle.com.

2. Benchmarks are available from both http://www.oracle.com and http://www.tpc.org.

3. Ibid.

4. At the end of May, 2002, Oracle had more than 9 billion dollars in revenue from the previous 12 months, with over 2.7 billion dollars in quarterly revenues, and over 10 billion dollars in total assets of which 5.8 billion dollars was in cash and cash equivalents, according to public filings.

The Global Name Registry, Limited

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Global Name Registry proposes to use Oracle 8i, version 8.1.7 on IBM AIX, which we currently operate for the .name registry. This is one of the most secure, stable and high-performing database management system configurations in the world.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary).The Oracle database management system is a proprietary system, owned by Oracle Corporation, as described in further detail below.

While other elements of the Global Name Registry system have been based on open source software (such as the Linux operating system), we have not found any compelling reason to use an open source database management system. In our view, these database systems lack maturity, documentation and support, therefore presenting a risk to the demanding, high-availability operations required by a generic top-level domain. We base our decision to use the Oracle database management system on the following deficits with open source databases:

Lack of thorough and consistent documentation

Lack of professional and dedicated support on the open source software and high risk that support, if any, may be discontinued without warning

High risk of software version "forking", which would result in several conflicting versions of the same software and internal incompatibility. Migration tools from one "fork" to another may not be readily available, if at all.

Lack of professional training and hard/impossible to recruit highly qualified personnel with respect to the software

Undefined migration strategy for future software versions (and no history of proven expertise in migration)

Lack of scalability strategies like clustering

Lack of professional backup strategies (hot backup, backup management)

In the case of a critical issue or failure, nowhere to turn to for professional, rapid and complete support, and importantly; no product liability.

Global Name Registry therefore believes that the only appropriate and available choice for operation of the mission-critical database of any generic top-level domain registry is a commercial, proprietary system, and we have chosen Oracle for both our current .name operation and for our .org proposal.

Responses to [b][2] (scalability), [b][3] (functionality), and [b][4] (performance). Global Name Registry has carefully chosen its database management system and database platform based on many of the considerations outlined above. Our Oracle SRS database runs on IBM AIX on a set of IBM P660 servers, a high-performance and secure combination that has been proven in numerous high-volume, high-reliability operations worldwide.

Oracle provides the reliability, functionality, performance, support and migration strategy that Global Name Registry believes is integral for performing the vital database management function of its operations. In particular:

Extensive, professional, consistent world-class support

The Oracle Support teams and libraries, including its extensive on-line library (Oracle Metalink and Oracle Technet) responds efficiently and consistently to support issues

Oracle runs extensive Oracle courses, and all Oracle trainers have been through the Oracle Certification Process (OCP), providing Global Name Registry with consistent and reliable, professional support.

Allows for easier .org transitioning

VeriSign uses Oracle in its current operation (Source ¹) and the .org transition can be greatly aided, and much more secure, if the transition occurs between identical platforms. A transition between VeriSigns Oracle platform and a differnet platform and system, (specifically an open source database) , which may possess different capacities and lower quality, would likely involve much higher risks.

Provides a clear and proven data migration strategy

Oracle supplies several data migration utilities to ensure safe transitioning for any upgrade of an Oracle database. The Oracle systems have a proven trackrecord with such transitions, providing high security for any future upgrades of the database

Oracle provides tested and proven export/import utilities for data migrations such as the .org transition.

Guarantees data integrity

The Oracle locking and concurrency mechanisms are well proven and importantly, Oracle guarantees data integrity in all transactions

Oracle guarantees zero data loss to committed data in the case of server failure, ensuring the integrity of transactions

Backups can be formed in "hot" mode, while the database continues to perform all operations, using Oracle proven redo log functions.

Provides proven, professional database scalability strategies

Oracle makes available industry proven high-end database scalability strategies such as clustering and Oracle Parallel Server.

Oracle Flexible Architecture allows controlled database file growth and avoids disk contention.

High Performance

Oracle on AIX is one of the highest performing and proven database management systems in the world

The system allows for highly efficient replication mechanisms between both primary databases and external replicated disaster recovery databases

Oracle systems provide extensive tuning parameters to improve performance in most "bottleneck" situations. System performance can be improved, in most instances, simply by tuning the database to avoid experienced bottlenecks.

Extensive, detailed functionality

The PL/SQL native programming language fundamental to the system allows for flexibility and speed

Functionality features include: extensive utilities library, export, import, migration, log-miner for auditing of transactions, hot backup

A multi-user environment supports an unlimited number of concurrent users

A standby database replicates an exact read-only copy of the primary database for failover situations

The system supports multiple datatypes, including large objects, national language support, and binary large objects

In addition, functionality also includes:

Data Rollback for uncommitted changes

Internal triggering for improved auditing

Stored Procedures for faster execution of scripts

Full support for indexed foreign keys

SGA (System Global Area) Memory highly tunable to aid I/O

Supports Parallel Server, for improved performance and scalability

Guaranteed Concurrency, Read Consistency, Data Integrity

Ability to create database links between Oracle databases

High level of user-definable security

Oracle Performance on IBM AIX

The Oracle database on Global Name Registry IBM P660 servers is a high-performance system currently capable of more than 1,500 transactions per second. Its separation onto three identical database servers (each on all IBM P660 servers) and different dedicated roles scale the database to meet high demand from the protocol independent layers (see Section C17, C22). This system is designed to meet the demands of a registry with capacity for more than 50 million domain names.

(For more information about the Oracle functionality, please see ²)

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support).

Choosing a database management system from a stable company with proven track record

That Oracle is one of the world's largest software companies was one of the fundamental reasons that Global Name Registry opted to use Oracle systems in building our databases. Oracle Corporation reports annual revenues of more than $10.8 billion, an illustration of its financial viability. Oracle has continued to run its business, mainly providing enterprise software to the world's largest and most successful businesses, which gives us comfort that Oracle will continue to support our databases built based on its systems and that the product line will persist.

Oracle database management systems are used by several of the largest companies in the world, including 93% of Fortune 100. (Source ³). Many of the following companies require the highest levels of reliability in order to ensure the stability of their high-volume systems

1. Financial industry

Hundreds of local, national and global financial services customers, including: Visa, Bank of Montreal, OCBC Bank Asia, and UBS Switzerland

3,500 Oracle Financial Services Partners are in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, including: Accenture, Eagle Systems, I-flex, Deloitte - Consulting, Sherwood International, Monday (formerly known as PwC Consulting), CGI, and KPMG Consulting

2. High tech industry

40 percent of all high tech companies use Oracle Technology

75 percent of the top high tech companies use Oracle Applications

3. Telecommunications

All of the Global 500 telecommunications companies use Oracle

The top 5 most profitable Fortune 1000 telecommunications companies run Oracle's E-Business Suite

4. Life Sciences

13 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies use the Oracle Clinical Suite

90% of all life sciences companies use Oracle technology

Oracle runs the three largest genome databases on the planet.

Why we are currently using 8i and not 9i?

Global Name Registry uses the IBM operating system AIX 4.3.3 for its database servers. In combination with Oracle 8.1.7 this is one of the most stable database management systems in the world. The list of companies currently using Oracle is a testament to the fact that Oracle 8i has been in extensive operation by some of the most high-profile and demanding multi-national companies. Due to its extensive demand by large operations, Oracle 8i is continuously improved and provides an unparalleled security and reliability. The documentation library on Oracle 8i is extremely extensive and covers almost any operational situation, allowing for extremely quick solutions and transparency to any issues that may arise.

Global Name Registry has in place a migration plan for moving to Oracle 9i, once we have determined that this software version is equally stable, reliable and secure as the currently operated version 8i.

Continued support for 8.1.7

Oracle currently provides Oracle 8.1.7 for AIX and continues support for this version.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). In the unlikely event that the Oracle database management system should become orphaned during the term of the registry agreement, Global Name Registry would still have the choice of continuing to operate Oracle in its current version and with the already existing library of support and patches. Since Oracle is used by so many high-demand multi-national organizations, most operational situations, risks and issues have been documented and patched, and therefore it is highly unlikely that a particular issue has not been addressed and documented fully in the support library. On this basis, it would seem unnecessary, or at least not urgent, to migrate immediately from Oracle in the event it becomes orphaned.

However, should Global Name Registry decide that it would move from Oracle in the medium to longer-term in the event it becomes orphaned, the migration would be greatly facilitated by the available migration tools included in Oracle, as well as the Global Name Registry team's experience with database transitions. We have previously reviewed the IBM DB2 in great detail as an alternative system. It is also a world-class database management system that would perform extremely well on Global Name Registry's IBM hardware platform and AIX operating system, and we would consider it the natural alternative choice for migration.

Conclusion

Global Name Registry has carefully chosen its database management system and database platform. Our Oracle SRS database runs on IBM AIX on a set of IBM P660 servers, a high-performance and secure combination that has been proven in numerous high-volume, high-reliability operations worldwide. Extensive, professional support is readily and continously available, and clear proven migration paths have been developed for the product.

While we believe that there are other database management systems that may also be appropriate for running the .org Registry, it is our belief that none of the open source databases currently has the maturity to reliably operate any generic top-level domain, or to safely transition and operate .org.

The proven stability, performance, security, unparalleled support and availability of skilled personnel, as well as the resulting similarity to VeriSign systems and Global Name Registry existing design and experience, make Oracle the safest and most reliable choice for the .org transition and operation.

Notes to GNR Response:

1. See Oracle http://www.oracle.com/customers/profiles/PROFILE2929.HTML; Dallas Oracle User Group http://www.doug.org/presentations/DOUGOracle9iAS.ppt

2. See http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/A87860_01/doc/index.htm)

3. See http://partnercontent.oracle.com/home/industry_ini/americas/english/ht_gp/index.html?ht_po.html; http://partnercontent.oracle.com/home/industry_ini/americas/english/fs_gp/index.html?fs_po.html; http://partnercontent.oracle.com/home/industry_ini/americas/english/ht_gp/index.html?ht_po.html; http://partnercontent.oracle.com/home/industry_ini/americas/english/tc_gp/index.html?tc_po.html; http://partnercontent.oracle.com/home/industry_ini/americas/english/ls_gp/index.html?ls_po.html

Internet Multicasting Service, Inc. and Internet Software Consortium, Inc.

This provides responses to ICANN's Supplemental Question 13 [1].

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). PostgreSQL version 7.2.2

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). PostgreSQL is one of the oldest and largest open source projects, with a well-established developer community, code base, documentation, and commercial support provided by a variety of companies.

See [3] for detailed information on PostgreSQL.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). "Scalability" is a somewhat ambiguous term in this context, as the question doesn't specify which parameter – complexity of the database, storage demand, transaction volume, or other – is of interest.

However, we can assure the evaluation teams that our database solution can easily handle our initial specification of 200Gb of storage, with Tru64's advanced filesystem providing the ability to add more capacity without rebuilding the database by simply adding more disks. Tested transaction volume capabilities are also several times larger than any anticipated load from supporting .org (see below).

Response to [b][3] (functionality). PostgreSQL supports an extended SQL-92 syntax, and supports many advanced features such as multi-version concurrency control and write-ahead logging for stablilty and performance.

Response to [b][4] (performance). We have used PostgreSQL in several applications, and find the performance meets or exceeds that of many commercial DBMS systems.

For a good comparison of PostgreSQL and other commercial DBMS systems, see [2] .

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). PostgreSQL has a long history of development, and is actively developed by 14 major developers and 51 regular contributors. It has a steering group which handles major portions, consisting of 6 people.

Paul Vixie is one of the contributors, and Michael Graff has worked with PostgreSQL for over 8 years on various projects, including a distributed DNS infrastructure.

For biographies of the steering group and major developers, as well as a list of other contributors, see [4] .

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). The availability of the system source to accompany the team's experience protects against any loss of functionality or availability of the database system based on licenses expiring or any of the other problems that can occur with orphaned software, even in the unlikely event that new development is abandoned within the foreseeable future.

However, our ability to support .org does not depend on any particular database product.

We are keeping all the database specific functionality contained, so switching to another database backend would involve rewriting only that interface layer. The .org registry is not taxing on a database engine, and the tables themselves, as well as the relations between them, are simple, and easily implemented in nearly any SQL based environment.

References for IMS/ISC Response:

[1] ICANN, "Supplemental Question #13 to .org Applicants", September 2002.

[2] XPERTS, "Open Source Database Routs Competition In New Benchmark Tests", August 2000.

[3] <http://www.postgresql.org/>

[4] <http://developer.postgresql.org/bios.php>

The Internet Society (ISOC)

Overview:

ISOC believes strongly that a stable, capable and proven database is needed to support .ORG. That is why we have proposed to use the database management system used successfully by Afilias for the .INFO domain: PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is one of the most advanced open source relational database management systems.

PostgreSQL is a proven, high-performance relational database solution that offers the broad scalability and integration required for a mission-critical environment. This robust, cost-effective solution supports enterprise-scale information management by providing management tools, flexible data access, full SQL support, and integrated globalization support via Unicode. PostgreSQL is designed to be easily integrated into mission-critical applications, delivering a reliable information management component within a small footprint.

PostgreSQL provides a cost-effective enterprise database solution that offers the scalability and flexibility needed to operate a high-availability registry system. This proven solution: 1) supports the 24x7 availability and high transaction levels required for the successful operation of a registry; and 2) significantly reduces administrative and operating expenses through management tools, high-availability services and the utilization of platform-tuned performance enhancements, driving high performance across a wide range of hardware and operating system choices.

In addition, it provides these benefits, which are detailed in the specific answers that follow the overview section:

Allows smooth scalability – Afilias' PostgreSQL database successfully scaled from zero to over 300,000 domains during the launch of .INFO, and currently supports close to a million domain names, and over 12 million records. A key to its smooth scalability is PosgreSQL's large capacity and ability to handle multiple simultaneous operations quickly and efficiently.

Provides complete database functionality – PostgreSQL performs all the functions required of a modern registry database, as shown by Afilias' success in running the .INFO registry.

Offers high performance – PostgreSQL enables a registry to consistently handle increased transaction loads and still deliver excellent response time. PostgreSQL's performance has enabled it to beat out Oracle8i to win the1999 LinuxWorld Editor's Choice Award.

Benefits from broad community support and usage – Since its beginning in 1986, Postgres (the predecessor to PostgreSQL) has developed a large and active following, providing constant improvements and a reservoir of experienced professionals for extended support. This support allows organizations like RedHat, BASF, the University of California at Berkeley, and the American Chemical Society to rely on it for key applications.

Provides high data portability and standards compliance – PostgreSQL offers enhanced flexibility for data integration and portability through SQL standards support, as well as transparent read/write access. PostgreSQL also supports cross-platform processing through options that provide distributed data management and fault-tolerant data replication. Native support for standard protocols such as JDBC and ODBC allows access from most popular development tools.

Given the above, and Afilias' success with this database, we are confident that PostgreSQL will support .ORG in a stable, capable manner consistent with the technical requirements of ICANN.

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). ISOC's proposed registry system for .ORG will use PostgreSQL version 7.2.2, one of the world's most advanced open source object relational database management system. The PostgreSQL system currently serves as the basis for the existing .INFO registry and has been proven by Afilias to be adaptable and scalable to accommodate the needs of a large gTLD registry.

To support ongoing operations, as new versions of the database system are released, Afilias will test them thoroughly, and, when appropriate, upgrade its registry system to those newer versions.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice). ISOC and Afilias are firmly committed to providing the best technical infrastructure for the management of the .ORG registry and are also committed to utilizing reliable, stable and secure technologies in every mission critical component of its registry architecture.

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). PostgreSQL is an Open Source DBMS, released under the Berkeley License. PostgreSQL allows us to have the flexibility of open-source software that brings along the benefits of a collective community of support, in addition to the stability of a proven and tested solution.

January 2001 New Architect Magazine cites that:

". . . PostgreSQL is arguably the most advanced relational database of the open-source options, and the best positioned to challenge the supremacy of the commercial leaders."

Many other organizations have adopted PostgreSQL, rather than, or in addition to, a commercial solution.

RedHat Database currently runs on PostgreSQL 7.1.

BASF recently (July 2002) selected it to power the shopping platform for its new "Harvest Partners Network," a satellite based e-initiative for its agricultural products division.

The Department of Demographics at the University of California at Berkeley uses PostgreSQL to manage its detailed database of students and alumni.

The National Computer Center (NCC) and the University of the Philippines are building a P2-million Linux-based information system for local government units (LGUs) and plans to run the system using Linux and PostgreSQL.

The Wireless Developer Network (wirelessdevnet.com), an online portal for software developers that focuses on wireless communication technologies, runs 12 servers with PostgreSQL, Red Hat Linux, Apache Web servers, and PHP scripting. See Section 13[b][5] for a complete list of organizations that use PostgreSQL.

In fact, PostgreSQL has won both the 1999 LinuxWorld Editor's Choice Award, beating out Oracle8i, the 2000 Linux Journal Editor's Choice Award for the Best Database, and was a finalist in the 2002 Linux Journal Editor's Choice Award for the Best Database.

"A full-featured object-relational database management system (DBMS), PostgreSQL has become one of the most mature and powerful open source tools available." – 1999 LinuxWorld Editor's Choice Awards

When Afilias began building its registry software for .INFO over one year ago, they looked for and used best-of-breed components to ensure that they would be able to provide a registry that was fast, stable, and secure. As with all the other technology that Afilias uses, PostgreSQL continues to meet Afilias' stringent requirements and provides it with a fast and reliable database to support the largest new gTLD registry to date.

PostgreSQL also brings with it the confidence of a proven history. PostgreSQL originally came from the same researchers who developed the world's first commercially available RDBMS¹, Ingres, beginning in 1977 at the University of California at Berkeley. Around 1986, Michael Stonebraker, also at UCB, began the Postgres project. It was an experimental object-relational database, and spawned the commercial database Illustra (later purchased by Informix).

In 1994-1995, UCB students Jolly Chen and Andrew Yu added SQL capabilities to Postgres, and called it Postgres95 (after another more commonly used program available about that time).

In 1996, the project left UCB and moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Afilias' technology, operations and development staff are also located in Toronto). The project's name was changed to PostgreSQL, to emphasize the heritage and SQL capabilities of the system. Most importantly, because of the installed user base, the development emphasis shifted from merely supporting academic research to providing a stable and standards-compliant database system.

PostgreSQL runs on Solaris, SunOS, HPUX, AIX, Linux, Irix, FreeBSD, and most flavors of Unix, as well as Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). PostgreSQL is a scalable database well suited for a domain registry and fully capable of accommodating .ORG. Databases can scale both vertically (expanding capacity within the current system) or horizontally (by adding capacity in addition to the existing system). The PostgreSQL database can scale both vertically and horizontally. This will be utilized by PIR to manage the future growth of the .ORG TLD. It must be noted that Afilias' registry database system at present has sufficient capacity available to handle anticipated peak loads from .ORG without any major change in its base configuration.

As our proposal states, PIR will provide primary services (through Afilias) that will be balanced across the two main databases. Load averages on currently slated database servers are expected to operate at a sustained 12-15% of capacity, with bursted loads of 20-25%. The database servers will be operated with a minimum bursted capacity of 50% over sustained loads. In the event of unexpected load increase, this available overhead should permit the Registry Operator to add additional memory and CPU to continue to scale load appropriately. Disk storage space is provided for in an external disk array and can be dynamically added, while available unused disk space will be maintained at levels of 50% over sustained usage.

There are two fundamental measures that will illustrate PostgreSQL's scalability beyond what has already been included in our proposal: Capacity and Concurrency.

i. Capacity

PostgreSQL is able to accommodate over 65,000 GB of data in a single table, which is more than adequate storage for a thick registry operating at many times the current size of .ORG (.INFO currently uses less than .02% of this capacity).

Afilias has designed a robust system architecture (C17.1.2.a.i Figure 8) for the .ORG registry that ensures that the database will be able to accommodate many times the volume and size of the current .ORG registry.

From a practical perspective, the .ORG database machines will be configured to support quadruple our best estimates of the current average transaction load experienced by the .ORG databases, without reducing performance below the service levels to which we commit in our proposal. (C17.3.3.c)

Additional support is realized in PostgreSQL's use by a wide variety of organizations to store and retrieve large volumes of mission-critical data. (More details can be found in the response to question 13.b.5).

More important than the software limitations of PostgreSQL are the limitations of the host machines and their operating systems, for example file-handle and memory-address limit.

ii. Concurrency

Any enterprise-level DBMS, such as PostgreSQL, will be able to handle terabytes of data. As stated previously, PostgreSQL can easily handle the data requirements of any of the current top-level domains. For a high-volume database such as a registry, the more pressing question regarding scalability is how the DBMS scales under transaction volume. Here, too, PostgreSQL provides more than adequate scalability through its concurrency capability.

PostgreSQL provides multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) – the advantages of which are briefly discussed in our proposal (C17.3.1). MVCC is a way of ensuring that every database transaction sees a completely consistent view of the database, while at the same time ensuring that very high transaction volumes can be accommodated.

Traditional locking makes for slow query times when under high load. MVCC prevents that problem, meaning that queries are nearly as fast for 1,000 users as for 100 or 10.

In order to provide for concurrent transactions, most DBMS's use various locking schemes, or else depend upon a two-phase commit technique. PostgreSQL provides better than row-level locking by offering a refinement of the two-phase commit approach, which affords the advantages of the two-phase commit without most of the usual bottlenecks. "Readers do not wait for writes," except where there is a direct data-access conflict. For a registry, this means that domain information queries are fast and up to date exactly up to and continuing past the moment that a data-altering command is processed and committed. No reader has to wait for a transaction to process, improving overall service speed.

The effect of this sort of concurrency control is significant. In lock-based concurrency regimes, an update of a record requires that an attempt to read that record must wait until the update succeeds or fails. In PostgreSQL's high-concurrency approach, the reading query of the record can proceed even while the update is happening.

For a registry, MVCC enhances performance in WHOIS and object queries. For example, a <domain:info> EPP query, or a WHOIS query, will return quick, accurate results even if the domain has an update command in process against it. Because this sort of concurrency management is handled automatically by the database, work-arounds such as "optimistic locking" are not necessary. The result is a fast, stable and secure registry system.
In summary, PostgreSQL can not only handle a high capacity of data, but allows for high concurrency of users. High concurrency is an important criterion of registry database scalability. Afilias' internal tests and experience with the .INFO registry indicate that PostgreSQL will scale to thousands of simultaneous requests without significantly affecting query speed. PIR is willing to commit to the stringent service levels outlined in Section C28 on the basis of Afilias' internal tests, the evidence from other users of PostgreSQL, and Afilias' experience with .INFO.

Response to [b][3] (functionality). PostgreSQL is a true object-relational database management system. It provides all of the functionality required for a registry, including providing for adequate storage of the registry data, as well as accurate and quick retrieval.

Distinctive Features

Globalization Support. PostgreSQL enables greater access to global markets via Unicode support. The Unicode standard allows applications to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without reengineering.

Scalable Server Architecture. PostgreSQL enables a server architecture that allows large numbers of users to access databases through connections to one or more DBMS server processes. This solution provides comprehensive scalability, which enables PIR to leverage platform capabilities such as large file system support, very large memory (VLM) and 64-bit architectures.

Data Access and Integration Capabilities. PostgreSQL offers enhanced flexibility for data integration and portability through SQL standards support, as well as transparent read/write access. PostgreSQL also supports cross-platform processing through options that provide distributed data management and fault-tolerant data replication. Native support for standard protocols such as JDBC and ODBC allows access from most popular development tools.

Reliable Information Management. Through its “High Performance-Low Overhead” small footprint design, PostgreSQL can be easily integrated into mission-critical applications. Afilias has made use of this functionality in the operation of its .INFO registry, offering proven reliability and enabling nearly unattended operation in production environments.

PostgreSQL provides the compatibility of SQL without sacrificing the strengths of its Ingres and Postgres heritage. With limited exceptions, it supports the ANSI SQL 92 and SQL 99 specifications.

PostgreSQL offers a rich SQL-compliant environment. Here are some of its functions²:

Function PostgreSQL

Scalability and Availability

Multi Version Concurrency Control Yes

Automated standby database (replicated) Yes

Tools for standby database management
Yes

Readable standby database Yes

Security

Single sign-on support Yes

User auditing Yes

Database roles No

Operating system based authentication Yes

Database based authentication Yes

Kerberos support Yes

Native SSL support Yes

Management Automation

Automated memory management Yes

Automated table space growth Yes

Automated table space shrinkage Yes

Automated table space reclamation Yes

Ability to drop a column No

Automated statistics gathering Yes

Graphical index tuning tools No

Auto-recompiled stored procedures Yes

Visual data modeler No

Database copying utility Yes

Integrated notification services Yes

Online index reorganization Yes

Programmability

User-defined functions Yes

XML support Yes

Heterogeneous queries Yes (using APIs)

Stored-procedure and trigger support Yes

Text and document search Yes

On-delete/update referential integrity Yes

Native support for Perl, C, C++, pl/pgsql, Tcl, ODBC, JDBC, and Python Yes

Functional and partial indexes Yes

Reliability

Replication Yes

Hot backup Yes

Standardization

Full "ACID"-compliant transactions Yes

Native support for Perl, C, C++, pl/pgsql, Tcl, ODBC, JDBC, and Python Yes

Built-in support for Unicode and international character sets Yes

Support for UNION, UNION ALL and EXCEPT queries Yes

Views Yes

Inheritance Yes

ANSI SQL 92 and SQL 99 support Yes

Response to [b][4] (performance). PostgreSQL features an efficient "High Performance/Low Overhead" model. The low overhead makes for a fast system which easily meets the performance targets necessary for running .ORG.

Consistent with the extensive performance data submitted in answer to Question #14, Afilias has successfully operated the .INFO registry under a wide range of load conditions and delivered its service commitments consistently.

During the .INFO Sunrise and Landrush periods, Afilias saw burst loads in the 1000 insertions-per-second range, without facing undue strain on the database systems. The queue-submission periods of .INFO's Landrush and Sunrise processes produced similar conditions to the "add-storm" periods reported by the current .ORG operator.

Other PostgreSQL users have experiences similar to those of Afilias. Online billing systems, point-of-sale systems, and high-availability cable-modem provisioning systems have all been built with PostgreSQL and each of these needs to cope with high transaction volumes. High volumes of data are handled by other PostgreSQL installations, including X-ITEC IT-Consulting. X-ITEC reports installations that have grown at more than 3000 rows per second.

i. Maximized uptime and reliability

While scalability is important, no amount of power or performance is useful if a database isn't up and running. Therefore, maximizing uptime is essential. In PostgreSQL, many operations can be performed online so that the server can stay up and running. Additionally, PostgreSQL's backup features ensure that backups can be performed with minimal impact on server performance or availability.

In databases that are highly transactional or are otherwise updated routinely (such as a registry database), the uptime implications of index reorganizations have often forced database administrators to perform these operations during non-peak times. With PostgreSQL, index reorganization can be performed online with modest impact on performance, even for demanding OLTP applications such as a 24x7 availability database. Furthermore, online index reorganization uses minimal data space, and is fully logged (for recovery).

ii. Replication and Backup

PostgreSQL allows two types of replication:

1. Snapshot. Another feature in PostgreSQL that results in higher percentage uptime while reducing impact on resources is server-less snapshot backup. This method copies an entire view of data to another computer. The destination database view is overwritten with the new version. Snapshot replication distributes data exactly as it appears at a specific moment in time and does not monitor for updates to the data.

2. Transactional. With transactional replication, an initial snapshot of data is applied at the copy, and then when data modifications are made at the source, the individual transactions are captured and propagated to copies. Transactional replication is helpful when:

Incremental changes need to be propagated to copies as they occur.

Transactions need to adhere to the Atomic, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) properties.

Because Afilias uses PostgreSQL replication in Snapshot and Transactional modes, the performance characteristics of the registry system even during replication periods are virtually unchanged. As a result, database backups and similar procedures can be performed in a fully atomic, consistent, isolated and durable (ACID) manner.

Ensuring High Availability results in enhanced registry system performance

A major challenge in designing and implementing a highly available registry solution is examining and addressing possible causes of database downtime. PIR will ensure that both unplanned and planned downtime is kept to a minimum, and will conform to the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) agreed to.

In the event of a system failure, the PostgreSQL database will quickly recover on its own, ensuring all committed transaction data is protected. Further, Afilias has implemented a broad set of measures to protect from major unplanned events including data corruption, human error, and disasters. Should such events occur, PostgreSQL would keep recovery time to a minimum. In addition, PostgreSQL provides many features that help reduce the need for planned downtime. Administrators have access to tools that allow them to perform routine operation and maintenance tasks while the registry system remains online and domain name data is fully accessible.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). PostgreSQL will be supported throughout the term of the anticipated .ORG registry agreement. While PostgreSQL enjoys the same advantages of commercial support that other DBMS enjoy, its worldwide developer community, its user base, and the availability of the source code itself, offer even greater likelihood of reliable support.

Afilias holds a Platinum support contract with PostgreSQL, Inc. The agreement entitles Afilias to unlimited support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. PostgreSQL, Inc. is able to offer the assistance of core developers from the PostgreSQL project. That means that when assistance is necessary, people who are thoroughly familiar with the central database engine are available to respond to support requests.

Most commercial RDBMS support contracts provide the ability to contact a technical support representative, and require significant effort in order to escalate the problem to a qualified database engineer. By contrast, Afilias' contract with PostgreSQL, Inc., provides access to some of the very programmers who wrote the database system. Should a serious bug be found in the PostgreSQL system, Afilias' support contract provides them direct access to the engineers most likely to understand exactly what the software is doing, and what the problem might be. Moreover, because the code is open to public inspection, any suggested fixes to the problem is often peer-reviewed and audited for flaws before use in the registry environment. The sum of all of these benefits is a database system that enjoys commercial support comparable to many other commercially available systems, in addition to the rapid support and auditing by a vibrant developer community.

Commercial support for PostgreSQL extends beyond the support offered by PostgreSQL, Inc. Listed below are various firms who offer commercial support for this database:

Commercial support for PostgreSQL

Company Service Description

Red Hat, USA Offers products, support, training, services and development for PostgreSQL

dbExperts.Net, USA Offers support, consulting and development for PostgreSQL

Applinet, Netherlands Offers PostgreSQL consulting services

Command Prompt, Inc., USA Offers managed services and PostgreSQL support

Software Research Associates, Japan Provides a range of services to help customers develop PostgreSQL based systems

Lerner Communications Consulting, Israel Provides programming, support, and training for PostgreSQL and other open-source technologies

Support Also Provided By:

DBAS, Argentina

Pate Consulting, USA

Wireboard Industries, USA

Herdboys Interactive, UK

Exadata Consulting, Finland

Cybertec Geschwinde & Schvnig OEG, Austria

Afilias has built its own significant relationships with key PostgreSQL developers who provide additional methods of support. With an open source solution such as PostgreSQL that makes its source code publicly available, Afilias is building up in-house expertise and knowledge that afford it more internal support flexibility.

In addition, as an open-source solution, PostgreSQL is supported by a vibrant community, drawn from all over the world. As of September 12, 2002, the PostgreSQL developers' biography page <http://developer.postgresql.org/bios.php> listed more than 60 significant contributors, and its mailing lists handle great volumes every day. This shows that there is a large and diverse support network extending beyond the support contract, and that this support network is extremely active in providing support to the community already.

The reasons for this vibrant community support are twofold: first, PostgreSQL is under active development by skilled programmers from all over the world; and, second, PostgreSQL is used in mission-critical systems of all sizes, in a wide variety of applications.

i. Active development

The developers of PostgreSQL remain committed to constant improvement of the ORDBMS. Although PostgreSQL already offers better SQL compliance than many closed-license database systems, stricter SQL compliance is a goal towards which the development group strives. Moreover, PostgreSQL continues to improve its function set, in order to attract users who may desire more exotic SQL features. The prospective PostgreSQL 7.3 (which began its beta period in September of 2002), for instance, will also offer SQL schema support.

ii. Mission-critical use

PostgreSQL is used by enterprises in many sectors around the world. It is used by several government agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Children's fund (UNICEF), the U.S. General Services Administration, and the U.S. Department of Labor. Red Hat has built their Red Hat Database offering on PostgreSQL, and employs one of the core developers of PostgreSQL, Tom Lane, to continue its development.

PostgreSQL is used by the American Chemical Society to support a terabyte of data. The ACS holds the only copy of the data in the world – a $3.5 million dollar collection of 125 years of publications which do not exist anywhere else.

Hebrew University uses PostgreSQL to support a large multi-year study of cultural identity.

Bar Ilan University's Research Authority uses PostgreSQL to develop a university-wide publication-funding database: it will contain every grant dollar that comes into the university, and will track every publication by every researcher.

Logictree Systems has built a financial traders' data-mining system that is backed by PostgreSQL.

Below are some more detailed case studies of companies that have chosen PostgreSQL for their needs.

BASF: This $29B global chemical company selected PostgreSQL to power a shopping platform for a new initiative in its agricultural products division: the Harvest Partners Network. BASF worked with the Web Commerce Group's (WCG) product, Arkdom Commerce Enterprise Edition, which was developed with PostgreSQL. WCG chose PostgreSQL for 3 reasons: lower total cost of ownership; superior technology; and better maintenance and support. (See attached "A Web Commerce Group Case Study on PostgreSQL")

Vantek K.K: Vantek K.K. is currently implementing a business information system using PostgreSQL, for Tsutaya, Japan's largest rental company that rents more than a billion items a year. Vantek K.K's previous successes include the implementation of the Blockline ISP customer management system, again using PostgreSQL.

The World Company: The World Company operates 10 U.S. newspapers, several online sites, and a cable television, Internet, and telephone company in Lawrence, KS, USA. The World Company has based much of its operations on PostgreSQL.

World uses PostgreSQL in its telephony system that supports 9-1-1 calls. New telephony customers' paperwork may not be completed in time for daily inclusion in the U.S. national 9-1-1 database. Those customers' telephone sets will be working, however, so World uses a PostgreSQL-backed database to make sure that their customers' crucial address information is available to emergency services operators, even if the customer is not yet listed in the national 9-1-1 database.

World has also built its DOCSIS Internet service provisioning software using PostgreSQL. The system handles all aspects of IP assignment, modem configuration, health monitoring, and CMTS data gathering, as well as providing crucial data about customer configurations for technical support requests. The ISP business, Sunflower Broadband, originally depended on a Cisco product; but World discovered that they could increase their feature set while reducing their total cost of ownership by creating their own software, using PostgreSQL. World's Manager of Systems Administration and Programming, Frank Wiles, says that the system is completely dependable: "We've had absolutely zero unscheduled down time on this server since we launched it 2 years ago."

World built a custom user-tracking and management application to interface with their DOCSIS software, also using PostgreSQL. It is the basis for administration of the broadband ISP service, providing support to Sunflower's administrative, technical support, and business offices.

World also uses PostgreSQL to support its in-house content-management system for the electronic versions of all its papers. The system allows journalists and their editors to publish content to the web, without having to have a technical staff at every paper.

PostgreSQL is used to support crucial functions of World's business. It provides them with fast and reliable service. Mr. Wiles says that PostgreSQL provides them with an improvement in efficiency, and that they cannot get the features they want from other systems: "In fact all of the systems we've seen in the last year or so are actually less feature filled than ours and only run on proprietary systems and/or OSes (mostly Solaris )."

Cognitivity: Cognitivity is an e-learning company that provides computer based training to companies, in order to ensure regulatory compliance, and selected PostgreSQL because of its reliability. Because Cognitivity's clients need to be able to prove adherence to the law, all of the company's online training courses are required to keep detailed records of trainee behavior, interaction with the system, answers, attempts, and training time. These records are auditable by regulatory agencies. Additionally, companies contracting for training need detailed records about which employees have trained for and achieved various levels of certification.

Michael Lazzaro, Cognitivity's Lead Software Engineer, likes the speed of PostgreSQL, and the way it handily accommodates hundreds of thousands of event records spread across a complicated data structure. "This is our product," he says, going on to note that he has considered using other database systems, but cannot see any reason to do so. PostgreSQL is simply Cognitivity's platform of choice.

X-ITEC IT-Consulting: X-Itec provides an open-source content management system used by companies such as Familien Service GmbH. The X-Itech CMS has been used in installations of varying sizes, including on a system that grew an average of more than 3000 rows per second. X-Itec's customers rely on the X-Itec-supported servers to run web pages 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Boris Köster, principal of X-Itec, notes that PostgreSQL's portability gives him great flexibility, and does not tie him to a single platform. "Portability is quality," says Köster. PostgreSQL is "for me, a new experience of stability and robustness, a good product with source code."

Ray Ontko & Co. and Doxpop: Ray Ontko & Co. is a commercial database consultancy firm which specializes in supporting Fortune 1000 corporations. Nick Fankhauser is a database developer who works with the company, producing their Doxpop product. He spent 15 years developing and managing large database installations using various commercially-licensed DBMS.

Doxpop is based on PostgreSQL and offers web-based access to local government information. The service is growing rapidly. Their data is the critical component of their software. "Without the data we have no product. We supply local county information to subscribers (mostly attorneys); our database needs to be running 365 X 24. We are definitely not an academic or pure research institution- we are a profit-driven company that needs a reliable database," Fankhauser says.
"Our consultants work with Fortune1000 corporations using commercial databases every day, but when the time came to risk our own money and development time, we chose PostgreSQL."

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Because of the open source nature of PostgreSQL, the software code base does not suffer the same inherent business issues that one would see in a commercial package. Specifically, there is no underlying concern regarding the company's financial health; the code being bought out and obfuscated by a competitor; corporate espionage; etc. These kinds of risks do not affect open source products such as PostgreSQL.

Although "orphaning" by a corporate parent does not apply, there are two different scenarios where support could falter for the use of PostgreSQL. The first is a radical shift in database theory, and the related implementations, and the second is lethargy within the development community.

The first issue deals with the adoption of new database theories and technologies. In this regard, PostgreSQL excels. As stated previously (in response 13[b1]), PostgreSQL did not originally have SQL built in. However, as the SQL standards progressed, it was incorporated into the system, and is now one of the most fully compliant SQL implementations (See C17.3 Overview and Figure 31). The adoption of new database technologies has occurred many times within the lifecycles of PostgreSQL. As new ideas develop within the database community, PostgreSQL has developed a reputation for implementing these new ideas in a timely fashion.

The second issue deals with the notion that programmers will migrate to a totally new project, and work on PostgreSQL will slow to a minimum. Given PostgreSQL's history with adaptation to standards and new technologies (as stated above), as well as a sixteen year development history, it is difficult to envision that this would occur.

Open-source data conversion utilities for PostgreSQL exist, whose explicit purpose is to facilitate the migration of data to and from PostgreSQL. As a direct result, PIR's ability to convert the data contained in its database is made significantly easier, should the need occur.

Assuming, however, that an unforeseen issue would occur which would cause PostgreSQL to no longer be maintained in an appropriate fashion, PIR would begin the migration to another database subsystem. PostgreSQL, by virtue of its conformance to industry standards, would ease the burden of migration. Overall, the degree of difficulty in migrating the data to another database system is finite and measurable. Data migration can be performed with the skill sets that Afilias has already built in-house, as well from the PostgreSQL community.

Each RDBMS contains significant architectural differences, which must be accommodated in any data migration. Since PostgreSQL is accessible in an open and cross-platform manner via both ODBC and JDBC, a consistent application programming interface (API) is available that works with different databases through the use of database-specific drivers.

A consistent API results in function calls to perform important database actions such as initiating a connection, executing a command, and retrieving results that are identical regardless of whether the program is talking to PostgreSQL or another ODBC/JDBC compliant database. Additionally, a standardized call-level interface and standard escape sequences allow the data migration developer to specify SQL functions that perform common tasks but are executed differently in the two database systems.

The data migration process (as distinct from a registry transition process, which includes data migration) needs to take into account several important considerations. The data migration process must identify differences and determine methods of resolving such differences and create a uniform mapping for critical tasks and functions, such as:

Physical and Logical Storage Structures

Data access methods across RAID or non-RAID devices

Access to transaction logs and automated recovery methods

Ability to perform various backup methods, including full and differential backups, as well as snapshots

File encryption methods

Network security access and specialized database functions

Groups, roles and permissions, and migration of roles between databases

Common definition and/or mapping of database objects

Object names and identifier differences

Qualifying table names

Syntax for table creation, index and storage parameters

SQL syntax mapping for important functions, such as views and queries

Use of Unicode data

Enforcing Data Integrity and Business Rules, including constraints

Identifying differences and mapping functionality for transactions, locking and concurrency

Methods of handling deadlocks

Conversion of values to different data types

Conversion of user-defined functions, stored procedures and special calls

Raising program errors, common error processing methods and debug systems

Should PIR need to migrate data from its current database to a new database, the planned migration strategy would adhere to the following guidelines:

1) Determine a suitable successor database. This would involve testing various database systems within our environment, to see how each performs under the registry's normal and peak load conditions.

2) Once the successor database has been selected, the software will be procured (if not open source), installed, and appropriately configured into our test environments (see ISOC .ORG proposal, C 17-13.2-4).

3) A new set of database servers would be procured. These new servers would need to be configured and installed.

4) A data export / import procedure will be built in parallel with the development efforts in Step 4.

5) All pertinent API DB calls would be modified within the registry software (if necessary).

6) Queries would be re-analyzed to ensure that they are still optimized using the new system.

7) Once all software has been unit tested, the entire system will undergo an exhaustive test phase.

8) Any revisions that are derived from the test suites will be worked out.

9) The database would be loaded onto the procured servers, and a database export / import would be performed. No shutdown would need to occur for this step. The data would be exhaustively checked for any errors, and additional export / imports run to correct any mistakes.

10) The registry will be shutdown, the new database systems installed, an incremental export / import run, the data examined, and brought back up.

Notes to ISOC Response:

1. http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Collateral.asp?ID=1371&PID=1013

2. PostgreSQL offers many more functions than listed in this table, comparable with most functions available in major commercial RDBMS systems such as Oracle or IBM DB2.

NeuStar, Inc.

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Database management system (DBMS) brand name – Oracle

DBMS product name – 8i Enterprise Edition

DBMS version – 8.1.7

Response to [b] (reasons for choice). Mission-critical applications such as the .org shared registry system require stability – stability of the technical solutions delivered and stability of the underlying provider of those solutions. As the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company, Oracle possesses the requisite technical know how and financial strength to ensure that stability.

In addition to performance, functionality, and scalability, Oracle provides NeuStar additional features necessary for supporting mission-critical applications.

Off -site replication to a hot standby

Disk snapshot technology to eliminate the user-level impact of online backup and batch reporting.

The following sub-answers demonstrate additional reasons why Oracle and its 8i Enterprise Edition DBMS is the appropriate and logical choice for the .org shared registry system.

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). Oracle's DBMS implementation is proprietary. NeuStar selected a proprietary database such as Oracle because it is a proven product with an extensive track record of performance, stability, and scalability.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). At the time of its release, Oracle 8i, the DBMS used in NeuStar's registry, demonstrated its scalability by setting the record for the world's largest database 2 petabytes (note: 1 petabyte = 1,000 terabytes = 1,000,000 gigabytes).

Response to [b][3] (functionality). The functionality supported by the Oracle 8i DBMS includes: SQL DDL, SQL DML, CLOB support, JDBC 2.0 support, XML support, ODBC support, Unicode 3.0, Triple DES encryption, and replication.

Response to [b][4] (performance). Industry analysts consistently rate Oracle among the leaders in database performance. For example, Samsung SDS used an Oracle's 8i database to record 2,500 transactions per second (Winter Corporation Survey).

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). The question speaks to Oracle's ability and commitment to continue to support their product. Addressing this issue requires an approach from two different angles. First, will the company continue to be viable but abandon the product or a particular version of the product? Second, will the company cease operations or be bought by a competitor and have its products discontinued?

Regarding Oracle's commitment to its database management product: Oracle's database product is the cornerstone of its business. Unlike its chief competitors in the database market, Oracle has a singular focus on database technology and applications. In FY02, database products and services accounted for over 70% of its revenue. The vast majority of Oracle's other products and services are related to its database products. Consequently, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Oracle would orphan its database products. Additionally, Oracle has a track record of continued support of its legacy database versions. For example, support is still available on Oracle 7, which was released in the mid 1990s. Oracle also provides product migration tools and a smooth upgrade path to help its customers migrate between versions.

Regarding the possibility of Oracle ceasing operations or being bought and having its products discontinued, Oracle's financial and market position is relevant (highlighted below).

Significant enterprises currently using Oracle DBMS:

CitiBank;

U.S. Census Bureau;

Korea Telecom;

Wells Fargo;

Amazon.com; and

Best Buy.

Further:

10 of the top 10 financial services companies run Oracle;

10 of the top 10 telecommunications companies run Oracle;

10 of the top 10 health and pharmaceutical companies run Oracle;

10 of the top 10 manufacturing companies run Oracle;

a survey performed by FactPoint Group revealed that the Oracle DBMS is the market share leader in packaged applications used in Fortune 500 companies including; 76% of SAP installations, 72% of PeopleSoft, 81% of Seibel, and 73% of i2; and

65% of the Fortune 100 companies use Oracle.

Stability of vendor:

Oracle has a market capitalization of over $50B;

Oracle has over $9.6B of revenue in fiscal year 2002;

Oracle has over $5B in cash;

They have over 100,000 customers worldwide; and

Oracle employs over 43,000 people in over 100 countries.

One can, therefore, reasonably conclude, that Oracle will continue to be a viable company and there is little chance of it being bought by a competitor that would be interested in discontinuing its products.

The size of the community of developers and maintainers:

Not applicable to proprietary DBMS.

Extent to which software engineers familiar with the proposed database management system are available to NeuStar:

There are over one million Oracle developers worldwide. Further, Oracle database administrator skills are readily available and will be readily available for the foreseeable future.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). In the unlikely event that Oracle becomes orphaned during the term of the registry agreement, there would be limited impact to NeuStar's operation of the .org registry. There would be limited impact to the NeuStar .org registry because the degree of difficulty in database migration is very small. Should NeuStar be required to migrate to another database platform, there will be no interruption in DNS, no interruption of Whois services, and no change to registrars' RRP interface. Given Oracle's position in the marketplace, companies such as Microsoft and IBM have specific programs and technologies to allow Oracle users to easily and quickly migrate to SQL Server and DB2, respectively.

By any measure, Oracle is an extremely safe choice for database management, both from the perspective of the product's and the company's viability, longevity and stability.

Please note, corporate details such as financials, customers, and market data was derived from the Oracle website.

The .Org Foundation

On August 28, 2002 a letter from the Microsoft Corporation was posted to the ICANN public comment forum. This letter outlined Microsoft's pledge of a software donation to The .Org Foundation contingent on The .Org Foundation's successful winning of the bid. The pledge has a retail value of $802,888 and includes 16 licenses of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise and 48 licenses of SQL Server 2000, among a number of other licenses to other software. This database management system software is to be used for the operation of the .org shared registry and the .org nameservers.

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). Microsoft has responded to this question with the following answer: "SQL Server is not an open-source database system. SQL Server is an enterprise relational database management and analysis system with over 1 million servers sold and is the leading market share database on the Windows platform according to the Gartner Group."

Response to [b][2] (scalability). Microsoft has responded to this question with the following answer:

"SQL Server offers world-class scalability and performance for e-commerce, data warehousing, and line-of-business solutions, winning various industry standard and ISV benchmarks."

Extensive scalability documentation and benchmarks of Microsoft SQL Server are available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/compare/benchmarks.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/features/scalable.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/compare/performance.asp

An excerpt of this scalability documentation is below:

SQL Server 2000 delivers scalability for e-commerce, data warehousing, and line-of-business solutions. The table below summarizes a selection of SQL Server 2000 benchmark results for various applications and workloads. Of the 15 results listed, nine are best on any platform, beating the results of Oracle, IBM, and other database vendors regardless of operating system or hardware.

SQL Server 2000 can handle 709,220 transactions per minute! SQL Server 2000 has further established its position as the fastest database in the world. With a performance rating of 709,220 transactions per minute (tpmC) and price/tpmC of $14.96 US, a 32-node Compaq ProLiant DL760-900-256P system exceeded the previous record, which was also held by SQL Server 2000.

On the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) TPC-C performance list, SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Windows® 2000 holds the top three results. For full details on the new result, go to the TPC Web page.

To learn more, click the application name for the benchmark. The benchmarks are divided into the following categories: Industry Standard, E-Business, Financial, Customer Relationship Management, and Telecommunications.

Industry Standard

Workload/Application Benchmark Result Best On

TPC-C 709,220 tpmC Any platform

TPC-H @ 100 GB 1,699 QphH Windows

TPC-H @ 300 GB 1,506 QphH Windows (non-clustered)

TPC-W (item count 10,000) 5,958 WIPS Any platform

TPC-W (item count 100,000) 10,439 WIPS Any platform

Response to [b][3] (functionality). SQL Server's extensive command set and other capabilities, with a comparison to other databases, are summarized here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/compare/default.asp

Its extensive feature set is summarized here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/features/default.asp

A list of features by edition is summarized here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/features/choosing.asp

Differences of SQL Server from Oracle, IBM, and Sybase: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/compare/competitors.asp

Response to [b][4] (performance). see [2]

The SQL Server 2000 Enterprise database will run on a four-node clustered system. Each node will consist of a Compaq proliant (model DL580G2) quad-xeon 1.6GHz processor server, for a total of 16 processors (each are mp hyper-threaded version processors, and therefore there are 32 virtual processors). Two of the nodes have been purchased and are in-house.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). Over 1 million servers have been sold. A partial list of the significant enterprises using the database management system for mission-critical applications (with a case study of each one) is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/casestudies/alphalisting.asp

Most Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise database instances are used for mission-critical applications. The .Org Foundation and its registry service provider, eNom, are both physically located near Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, WA, and therefore, besides those SQL Server database architects and administrators already on-staff, additional software engineers who are extremely familiar with SQL Server are readily available to both organizations.

Additionally, Microsoft has responded to this question with the following answer:

"SQL Server has a large base of database administrators and developers with thousands of developers, solution provider partners and training organizations worldwide."

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Microsoft has responded to this question with the following answer:

"SQL Server is vital to the success of Microsoft, there is no chance it will be discontinued. SQL Server 2000 is part of Microsoft's comprehensive family of server applications for building, deploying and managing database management systems. Designed with mission-critical performance in mind, SQL Server will provide fast time to market as well as scalability, reliability and manageability for the global enterprise."

Organic Names Ltd.

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Organic Names will be using the Oracle 8i RDBMS for the .org shared registry.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice). The industry-standard Oracle 8i database system is resilient and proven, with failover protection and live cross-site mirroring. We believe that the expertise afforded by our working relationship with vendors will also give high-priority support for any issues which may arise during the initial implementation, the transition process, and beyond.

The key features we will be utilising are addressed on page 44 of our application.

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). Oracle is a proprietary database solution.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). As addressed in our application on page 44, an important feature of Oracle is the ability to expand the architecture of the RDBMS as required, through the SMP and MPP platform features and the unlimited database size.

Response to [b][3] (functionality). The Oracle 8i interface will be written using PL/SQL, through common DBI (in the case of Perl) and PEAR API (in the case of PHP) interfaces.

Response to [b][4] (performance). The initial specification of database will support at least 10 million .org domain registrations, with a performance level of several thousand queries per second.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). As Oracle is so widely used and supported throughout the IT industry, it is highly unlikely that it will be unsupported for an exceptionally long time. The availability of support contracts for assistance is instant, and we have access to several vendors in order to provide a network of software engineers for development purposes. We also propose recruitment of Oracle-certified software engineers for day-to-day operation and support cover.

The Oracle 8i RDBMS is the flagship product of Oracle Corporation. Oracle is the world's largest and most successful database company. Whilst recent stock market events demonstrate that this alone is no guarantee from corporate collapse, we believe them to be the supplier least likely to fail, or cease support for their product.

Oracle write:

Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company, providing enterprise software to the world's largest and most successful businesses. With annual revenues of more than $10.8 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Oracle is the first software company to develop and deploy 100 percent Internet-enabled enterprise software across its entire product line: database, server, enterprise business applications, and application development, and decision support tools.

More corporate information on Oracle can be found at:

http://www.oracle.com/corporate

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Since we will be using standard DBI and PEAR API interfaces, migration of the database software will not necessitate redevelopment of the registry software. While we would need to transition the database internal code, the external code and structure would remain constant.

Register ORGanization, Inc.

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Registry Advantage currently uses Oracle 8i (version 8.1.7). This will be the database product used for the .ORG registry initially. We plan to upgrade to future versions of Oracle's data server product to realize the benefits of such upgrades, upon determining them to be operationally sound.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice). Oracle is the RDBMS of choice for 3 out of every 4 Fortune 100 companies¹, and has the most trusted and reliable continuous availability model in the industry. Oracle's motto for its data server product line is "can't break it, can't break in", highlighting the industry leading security and stability of the product. Oracle also currently holds performance records making it the world's fastest OLTP server – a distinction it has held year after year. It is precisely because of Oracle's scalability, performance, functionality, commitment to open standards and platforms, and wide spread adoption throughout the industry, in addition to Oracle Corporation's stability as a database vendor and service provider, that Registry Advantage has selected Oracle's RDBMS as the database on which to run its registry operations.

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). Oracle is a proprietary RDBMS server that has embraced the open-source operating environment to the extent that it currently uses Linux as its own internal platform. Oracle was one of the first major software vendors to do so. Oracle backs up its commitment to open systems and open standards in its own operations, as well as its platform support and product offerings, including support for Java as a procedural language as an alternative to its proprietary procedural language. As with its operating environment, Oracle was one of the first databases anywhere to do so.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). There are no RDBMS systems that scale to a greater number of records, or to a larger total data size than Oracle. Furthermore, Oracle has embraced the concept of grid computing and integrated it with its current product offering, making it the first major RDBMS ever to scale to a theoretically infinite number of contributing grid based instances. It also holds TPC-C (423,414.41 tpmC ) and TPC-H (27,094.3 QphH@3000GB) benchmark records for speed, and at unmatched database sizes (3TB)². Oracle RDBMS can scale to enormous sizes without sacrificing performance.

Response to [b][3] (functionality). In addition to standard RDBMS features such as support for SQL92/99 data types and language features, Oracle has a very rich Procedural Language (PL/SQL), supports Java as a procedural language, can be extended with external procedure libraries, and supports extended data types and language features, is ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) compliant, and supports Multi Version Concurrency Controls (MVCC). It also has these important features:

High-end data warehousing capabilities;

Sophisticated query optimization;

Rich variety of integrated indexing schemes, join methods, and summary management features;

Partitioned tables and indexes based on range, hash or composite partitioning;

Parallel index creation and support for automatic index maintenance;

Scalable parallel architecture for SMP and MPP platforms;

Unlimited database size;

Architecture that supports thousands of simultaneous requests;

Online backups that can be made without interrupting transaction processing;

Extended backup/recovery subsystem, including online backups without interrupting transaction processing;

XML parsers;

User authentication and security;

Advanced resource management;

Full multilingual support, including Unicode UTF-2;

Database event triggers; and

Logging and archiving.

Response to [b][4] (performance). It is the fastest RDBMS available, and continues to top TPC-C benchmarks (423,414.41 tpmC) holding the top single server bench mark record, the clustered server benchmark record, the SAP Parallel Server benchmark record, and is the RDBMS of choice for the 10 largest OLTP sites on the net.³ In testament to its performance levels, Oracle is the only RDBMS vendor to ever offer cash awards to anyone who can outperform its server.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). Oracle is the most widely deployed RDBMS in the world. Many sectors – including defense, Internet, financial institutions, engineering and technology, and beyond – rely on Oracle databases of all sizes for mission critical operations:

Leading Internet security companies such as VeriSign,

Financial markets leaders such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley,

Aerospace leaders such as Boeing, and

Communications giants such as British Telecom.

Due to its extremely wide usage in such broad markets, there are more skilled engineers and administrators for Oracle than any other RDBMS technology anywhere. We have extensive in house experience with Oracle in both applications engineering and database administration, as we indicated in our application and in our response to supplemental question # 1. Oracle also has the largest outsourcing and professional services team of any RDBMS vendor anywhere – open or closed source.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Oracle is extremely financially stable and the likelihood of it becoming insolvent or unable to support its product during the term of the registry agreement is practically nil.⁴ However, in the theoretical case that this may happen, several factors would be likely to mitigate any operational impact. First, an extraordinarily large number of skilled Oracle workers would still exist, and be able to continue to support existing Oracle deployments in the same way the company does now. Specifically, Registry Advantage/Register.com have years of experience supporting large-scale domain name operations on the Oracle platform as it exists now, and could continue to do so regardless of the financial stability of the vendor. Second, even if Oracle were to become insolvent, its RDBMS product is likely to be acquired by another vendor that is likely to continue to offer support for the product. Finally, Oracle is the RDBMS leader, and as such is targeted by all competing RDBMS products. The manufacturers of every major RDBMS product, whether open-source or proprietary, compare themselves to Oracle, and have invested time and engineering expertise in migration technologies and processes to help customers switch from Oracle to their products.

Even without these technologies, Oracle's strong commitment to open standards and Registry Advantage's intelligent use of Oracle's open technology make transitioning from Oracle to another RDBMS a very low risk operation. Even in the hypothetical case in which there was some gap, as yet unidentified, in the ability to migrate to another RDBMS under these extraordinary circumstances, the global community of affected Oracle users would all need to manage some alternative. Registry Advantage is confident that if such a set of circumstances were to ever come about, we, and the rest of the world, would be able to successfully deal with any obstacles to a successful transition to an alternative RDBMS.

Notes to Register ORGanization, Inc. Response:

1. According to Oracle's web site at http://www.oracle.com.

2. Benchmarks are available from both http://www.oracle.com and http://www.tpc.org.

3. Ibid.

4. At the end of May, 2002, Oracle had more than 9 billion dollars in revenue from the previous 12 months, with over 2.7 billion dollars in quarterly revenues, and over 10 billion dollars in total assets of which 5.8 billion dollars was in cash and cash equivalents, according to public filings.

SWITCH Swiss Academic and Research Network

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Oracle (TM) 9i enterprise edition and associated tools (as currently in use for CH and LI).

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). The Oracle database management system is a proprietary solution.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). Oracle provides large scalability, from gigabytes up to terabytes of database files, and "revolutionary scalability is achieved with Oracle Real Application Clusters, supporting vendor independence and out-of-the-box scaling" (cit. Oracle).

Response to [b][3] (functionality). Oracle provides several functions that are useful for an ORG registry. Examples: standby reporting databases, XML capabilities for EPP, Oracle System Global Area (SGA) shared memory region configuration which "makes it simple to add or remove memory from an Oracle instance by allowing administrators to change the SGA configuration without shutting the instance down" (cit. Oracle).

Distribution over multiple locations is possible as well as different storage solutions (local discs, NetApp (TM) filers). Some of these solutions are already in use for CH and LI and additional applications are planned for an ORG registry. The main objectives are best performance and very high data security.

When greater than projected demands are encountered, Oracle Real Application Clusters can be used.

Response to [b][4] (performance). The level of performance is very high. The TPC-C benchmark reports approximately 6'000 transactions per second without using clusters. This is an improvement of 30% over similar Microsoft (TM) and IBM (TM) products.

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). We are aware of thousands of organizations using Oracle databases. URL http://www.oracle.com/ip/deploy/database/oracle9i/index.html?sp_user.html provides information about some of the largest organizations using Oracle for their mission-critical applications.

Oracle quotes VeriSign: "We have been using Oracle's clustered database for over 17 months with close to zero downtime for the databases."

To our surprise (;-)) even the Swiss Federal Railways which are reported as being punctual are stating that "We depend upon Oracle Enterprise Manager . . . it's the only way to manage a large number of databases effectively" (cit. from Oracle).

It is difficult to assess the financial stability of Oracle. Their 2001 annual report states annual revenues of more than $10.8 billion.

As mentioned in our proposal (App. B, Section 7e), SWITCH has technical staff with more than 12 years Oracle database experience.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). Oracle conforms to ANSI standard SQL. Migration towards any other SQL database is therefore guaranteed. Our data base engineers have migrated the databases for CH and LI several times before. During our upgrade to Oracle in late 1999 we had to migrate the contact information data base, name server data base and accounting information data base which were all non-standard. These upgrades have provided us with on-site know-how and we are well aware of the steps and pitfalls involved in such a process.

Union of International Associations

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS). Oracle 9.2 Enterprise Edition RDBMS is the database management software we've chosen to build our OLTP database system for .org.

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Response to [b][1] (open-source/proprietary). This is a proprietary database management system.

Response to [b][2] (scalability). Oracle's Enterprise Edition provides for features that allow a small database to scale as needed. Features such as data partitioning and database clustering allow database to scale and perform. As more performance is needed Oracle's clustering allows the addition of another server to improve performance without changing the application code or schema.

For performance scalability refer to the answer to question [b][4] below.

Response to [b][3] (functionality). Oracle supports all industry ANSI SQL standards. In general the database software is very rich in features that allow it to be highly extensible and make use of new E-Commerce trends. To list a few: built-in XML parser, built-in Java virtual machine and parser, Java as a stored procedure language, built-in data messaging.

Response to [b][4] (performance). There are well documented industry benchmarks of Oracle's leading performance and scalability in the OLTP space across a variety of hardware platforms at http://www.tpc.org (TPC-C benchmarks being applicable for OTLP performance).

Response to [b][5] (longevity of support). Oracle is today's leader in the Unix database marketplace with 35-40% market share. Oracle is the database of choice among Fortune 100 companies and has been around since 1977. The company is well established and thus highly likely to be around and supported for the next 4 years during the .org registry agreement.

Response to [b][6] (response to possible orphaning). If for any reason the .org registry would need to be migrated to another database, a variety of solutions could be deployed from flat file ascii exports, to vendor migration utilities or integration tools. To list one solution, Oracle sells products that provide "gateway" interface to major 3rd party database vendors such as Informix, Ingres, SQL Server, Sybase, Teradata, Rdb. Oracle Transparent Gateways are just one Oracle's solutions for transparently accessing data stored in a non-Oracle systems.

Unity Registry

Response to [a] (identification of DBMS).

Brand: Oracle
Product: 9i Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters
Version: 9.2

Response to [b] (reasons for choice).

Database Information:

The RDBMS database system Unity Registry has proposed to operate the .ORG registry is proprietary Oracle 9i Enterprise Edition (with Real Application Cluster support) version 9.2. It is a mature commercial database system that outperforms most of its commercial competitors and exceeds the performance and stability of most open source solutions. It can scale to hold petabytes of data and supports thousands of transactions a second. A brief summary of its many features includes:

Oracle Real Application Clustering (RAC) technology including Dataguard and Cache Fusion Technology enables Oracle to provide true multimode clustering (as apposed to each node holding different parts of the data set as Microsoft SQL server does) and has been tested to scale well above 64 nodes. Oracle clustering technology enables true, real time, no human intervention required for application fail over with high availability. "Applications can treat Oracle9i Real Application Clusters as a single system without the need to be modified or partitioned to achieve near-linear cluster database scalability. This allows customers to horizontally scale the database tier as usage and demand continues to grow, without changes to the application. Furthermore, Oracle9i Real Application Clusters are self tuning and adapts to the changing nature"

Full SSL security for data in transit, complete data and schema encryption and holds a level 5 US Military rating for security.

Fully ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability) supportive in its transactional RPC implementations.

Stored procedures and triggers in its PL/SQL programming language which is fully SQL99 and SQL92 compliant.

Full, concurrent transaction support for a theoretical unlimited number of users (bounded only by hardware constraints).

Full (not partial) referential integrity on all database objects.

ODBC connectivity as well as Oracle Native (OCI) and other networking and application interfaces which allow the programmer to get right into and highly tune and customize their application.

Native XML support (the underlying building blocks of the EPP protocol), including XML types, XML views, XML DB.

Multi-master and standard replication with standby databases offering seamless failover ability, 2 phase commit also allows the replication to continue even if link reliability between master and slave becomes questionable.

Backup procedures are unsurpassed with leading third parties such software such as Legato providing native interfaces to the Oracle DB system for backups. Hot backups on the fly are no problem and provides full point in time recovery with its transaction logs, a feature limited only to the high end commercial databases, others need to perform costly tape restoration procedures.

Full ties into the inner workings of the database kernel and process that allow all aspects of the system to be monitored and “tweaked” to fine tune the system for optimal performance

Full set of user access permissions, enabling users to be granted only the access they require and nothing more, combined with its transactional features this helps to eliminate human error.

Full multi-lingual support including native NLS and UTF options.

Advanced data indexing and view functions including object view which allow us to take object views of our data that closely map to the EPP model.

Asynchronous IO support for the fastest possible Disk access. As CPU speeds increase, disk access is quickly becoming the bottle neck for highly utilized database systems.

We have provided a range of web links below to support the above statements and many other features of Oracle. One of the links is an independent study done by CERN whilst evaluating which database system they should use, it compares Oracle to other database systems and found Oracle as number one, although it is referring to Oracle 8, Oracle 9 is built on the Oracle 8 platform and is vastly improved especially in the area of clustering and XML support:

Oracle Database Features

http://otn.oracle.com/deploy/performance/pdf/ibm_db2.pdf
http://otn.oracle.com/products/oracle9i/content.html
http://otn.oracle.com/products/oracle9i/pdf/9idb_rel2_features.pdf
http://otn.oracle.com/tech/xml/xmldb/htdocs/xmldb_intro.html

Comparisons to other databases

http://developer.postgresql.org/todo.php
http://www.software602.cz/produkty/winbase/comparison.htm
http://det-dbalice.if.pw.edu.pl/det-dbalice/documents/all/html/db_compare/db_compar_toc.html
http://det-dbalice.if.pw.edu.pl/det-dbalice/documents/all/html/db_compare/db_compar_summary.html
http://det-dbalice.if.pw.edu.pl/det-dbalice/index.html

About Oracle

Oracle is an international company with offices in over 100 countries world wide and 43,000+ employees, it offers various levels of support 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The support is full enterprise level support including not only the Oracle database products but the platforms and operating systems that Oracle relies on. Oracle have a full knowledge bank (see link to metalink below) which enables quick and immediate access to technical support and maintains an online database of thousands of issues, drawing for experience working with companies around the world experienced with the Oracle database products.

Oracle operates a advanced ticketing management system, if you are unable to find a solution to your problem you can raise a TAR (Technical Assistance Request) online or via telephone immediately and obtain a speedy solution to your problem from support staff who have the ability to communicate world wide with the right person to solve you problem. With a company as large as Oracle, there is always an expert in every area of their system not far away, and in your time zone. Oracle one stop support and knowledge base – Metalink can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/support/MetalinkSV.pdf

Whilst the likelihood of Oracle becoming insolvent within the duration of the .ORG license agreement is very minimal, there is nothing to say that should it occur we would need to stop using the Oracle database system. Oracle database is the most widely used database system in the world; it is used by companies such as Boston Stock Exchange, Verisign, Acxiom and many more world wide including large banks and other enterprise business. It powers all 10 of the world's largest Web sites – from Amazon.com to Yahoo! And sixty-five percent of the Fortune 100 use Oracle. This high level of corporate usage means that even long after the creator is gone their will be countless amounts of Oracle accredited IT professionals and corporations to provide support for the product. There are contingencies in place for the migration of the Oracle data set to an alternative proprietary or open source database system. Whilst it would require further development on our part to effect this change, we feel that the work involved in doing so would be insignificant compared to the day to day running of the registry system.

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