[A Registry Operator's Proposal is to be submitted as part of every new TLD application. In case of applications for unsponsored TLDs, the registry operator will be the applicant and should prepare and submit the proposal as part of the application. In the case of applications for sponsored TLDs, the sponsoring organization (or, where the sponsoring organization has not yet been formed, organization(s) or person(s) proposing to form the sponsoring organization) will be the applicant. The sponsoring organization should select the proposed registry operator, have it prepare the Registry Operator's Proposal, and submit it as part of the application.

Please place the legend "CONFIDENTIAL" on any part of your description that you have listed in item F3.1 of your Statement of Requested Confidential Treatment of Materials Submitted.

The Registry Operator's Proposal should be separately bound (if more than one volume, please sequentially number them) and labeled: "Registry Operator's Proposal." and must cover all topics described below. This page, signed on behalf of the registry operator, should be included at the front of the Registry Operator's Proposal.]

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

D1. The first section of the Registry Operator's Proposal (after the signed copy of this page) should be a listing of the following information about the registry operator. Please key your responses to the designators (D1, D2, D3, etc.) below.

RegistryPro was formed by Register.com, Inc. and Virtual Internet, Plc., (JV Partners) which in collaboration with Baltimore Technologies, are submitting this proposal to operate the .pro TLD.

The process of forming this venture, engaging in market research, and reaching out to professional associations with the intellectual property community is the beginning of the larger effort to create a new registry and a new restricted TLD. The significant resources of expertise, time and capital that the parties have brought to bear, represents a firm commitment to make RegistryPro a viable and competitive registry.

In responding to ICANN's questions throughout this proposal, we have offered information on RegistryPro, as well as the two joint venture partners that created RegistryPro, and their supporting partner Baltimore Technologies. In so doing we hope to provide assurances to ICANN that the TLD plans we propose will be developed, managed and implemented by three very strong, experienced, and compatible partners.

While RegistryPro does not itself have a business history, Register.com, Virtual Internet and Baltimore Technologies offer the depth and breath of business, technical and policy experience necessary for the success of the plans proposed.

D2. The full legal name, principal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e‑mail address of the registry operator.

RegistryPro
c/o Hayes & Curran, Solicitors
6 Fitz William Square
Dublin, Ireland
Phone: 011-353-1614-5000
Fax: 011-353-1614-5001
Email: tburke@mhc.ie

Register.com, Inc
575 Eighth Avenue
11^th Floor
New York, NY 10018
USA
Phone: 212-798-9100
Fax: 212-594-9876
Email: ebroitman@register.com (for the purposes of this application) or

sgaon@register.com (for the purposes of this application)

Virtual Internet, Plc
Elysium House
126-8 New Kings Road
London, SW6 4LZ
England
Phone: 011 44 207 565 4085
Fax: 011 44 207 460 4070
Email: nick.martin@vi.net (for the purposes of this application)

D3. The addresses and telephone and fax numbers of all other business locations of the registry operator.

Virtual Internet
3 Rue des Gesvres
60000 Beauvais
Paris, France

Virtual Internet
Via Richini 2A
Milan, Italy

Virtual Internet
245 Park Avenue, 39^th Floor
New York, NY 10167 USA

Virtual Internet Net Searchers
3 Rue des Haudrietts 3^rd
Paris, France

D4. The registry operator's type of business entity (e.g., corporation, partnership, etc.) and law (e.g., Denmark) under which it is organized.

Company Business Entity Law

RegistryPro Limited Corporation Dublin, Ireland

Virtual Internet Public Limited Company London, England

D5. URL of registry operator's principal World Wide Web site.

Company URL

RegistryPro www.registrypro.com;

www.registrypro.net

www.registrypro.org

www.registrypro.co.uk

Virtual Internet www.vi.net

D6. Dun & Bradstreet D‑U‑N‑S Number (if any) of registry operator.

Company DUNS Number US Tax ID

RegistryPro n/a n/a

Virtual Internet, Plc 236517418 n/a

D7. Number of employees.

Company Number of Employees

· RegistryPro Five directors, and recruitment in process as described below

· Register.com, Inc. 217

· Virtual Internet 145

RegistryPro will fill staff positions across all functions simultaneously, with key personnel in place at the outset. The structure of the company will be scalable so that it may grow to accommodate the demands of the registry business in the foreseeable future. The first priority will be the hiring of Senior Officers. Of paramount consideration is securing focused vision and operational leadership of the following personnel: Chief Executive Officer, Technologist (CTO), Finance (CFO), Business Development executive, and a veteran marketer with experience marketing in a business-to-business environment. We have initiated searches for these key personnel and expect that with currently available resources, staffing of the respective functional units will be accomplished during the start up period following ICANN approval of this application. Current resources for conducting executive searches include the following firms with which we have established relationships and existing agreements:

Christopher Mill & Partners
25 Bedford Gardens, London, W8, UK
Christopher Mill & Partners undertakes international executive search for a number of international organizations. The company has undertaken a number of executive searches in the IT industry and we understand are currently acting for ICANN.

Robert Half International (RHI Consulting and IT Placement)
Robert Half International provides high level IT placement services and has an office in Ireland. Through this firm, Register.com recruited their Director of Development and Director of System Operations, as well as additional critical technical personnel. Even in a tight labor market, candidates with strong skills and background were presented to Register.com and the open positions were filled efficiently.

Heidrick & Struggles
Heidrick & Struggles is one of the most respected Executive Search firms in the U.S. and has spent much of the past few years expanding their IT practice.

Spence International
Spence International is a boutique executive search firm specializing in strategic search at the Chief Executive level.

In addition to the resources of Executive Search firms, whose resources have already been mobilized, the JV partners have substantial internal resources:

§ Internal resume database (over 5,000 recent, screened, targeted resumes)

§ An active referral network in the US, UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe, including venture capitalists, employees, and business partners.

§ Strong internal recruiting team with the expertise to ramp out executive teams in tight time frames. Evidence of this can be witnessed by both companies’ rapid growth rates.

D8. Registry operator's total revenue (in US dollars) in the last‑ended fiscal year.

RegistryPro Revenue Data

RegistryPro has no historical financial data as it was established in September 2000. However, the JV partners’ revenues are as follows:

Register.com Revenue Data

Revenues for the 6 months ended June 30, 2000 were $32,667,756; and for the year ended December 31, 1999, $9,644,552.

As of June 30, 2000, Register.com held cash and cash equivalents of $148,332,164 and short-term investments of $26,912,789.

Audited financial statements dated March 2, 2000 were prepared for Register.com’s IPO and unaudited financial statements for the two quarters ended June 30, 2000 are included with this application as Attachment 1.

Virtual Internet Revenue Data

Revenues for the 9 months ended July 31, 2000 were $6,243,000; and for the 13 months ended October 31, 1999, $2,827,500.

As at 31 July 2000, VI held cash balances of $32.5 million.

Audited financial statements for the 13 month period ended October 31, 1999 and unaudited financial statements for the 9 months ended July 31, 2000 are included with this application as Attachment 1.

D9. Full names and positions of (i) all directors, (ii) all officers, (iii) all relevant managers, and (iv) any persons or entities owning five percent or more of registry operator.

(i) Directors

RegistryPro Directors

Resumes for RegistryPro’s board of directors can be found in Attachment 2.

Richard Cobb

Having earned a law degree at St John’s College, Cambridge, Richard Cobb has worked in the business and technology fields with a legal perspective. Prior to joining Virtual Internet in August 2000, Mr. Cobb served as an Internet corporate finance specialist at Olswang. According to Commercial Lawyer Magazine, Olswang stands as the UK’s most successful law firm. In his capacity, Mr. Cobb worked for such clients as the BBC, Channel 4, Carphone Warehouse, Bloomberg, Chase Manhattan, Gameplay, Belgo, Imagination Technologies and Ideashed.

Ronald A. Fried

As Senior Vice President of Business Development of Register.com Ronald Fried manages business development, mergers & acquisitions, public policy, and project management teams. He makes recommendations for potential strategic partners, as well as acquisition candidates. His duties include analyzing the strategic and financial impact of potential mergers and acquisitions; managing policy and public affairs initiatives and the timely delivery of technical applications. He also manages the communications between technology and business development.

Robert Gardos

As Chief Technology Officer, Robert Gardos is in charge of overseeing all the company’s technological development, strategy and operations. Rob was an instrumental player in getting register.com selected as one of the first five “test-bed” registrars to be accredited by ICANN. He has also shepherded the development of some of the industry’s most innovative domain name applications, including Register.com’s proprietary Domain Manager application, the company’s ticketing system and Domain FastFind. Before joining Register.com, Rob was the Chief Financial Officer for Touchlink, a privately held company that he co-founded to provide public Internet kiosks. From December 1994 to April 1997, Rob worked as Senior Consultant for Ernst & Young where he managed system selection and implementation projects. From January 1994 to December 1994, Rob was an analyst for UMS Management group, a firm specializing in utility consulting. Rob received his B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business, with a concentration in Finance.

Jonathan Wales

Jonathan Wales joined Virtual Internet in February 2000. He was a senior partner at Wise and Co., a firm of Chartered Accountants based in Surrey. In addition to being responsible for a range of clients within the practice, he has led the corporate finance department handling a range of corporate acquisitions, disposals and management buyouts. Jonathan first worked in the Internet industry in 1997 when he became the Partner responsible for the affairs of Virtual Internet Limited, and was involved in a range of acquisition work on that company’s behalf. Jonathan is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Anthony Burke

Anthony Burke was educated at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland where he achieved a B.A. (Mod.) in 1974. In 1976 Tony was awarded a Dip. Eur. Int. at the University of Amsterdam, Holland. Anthony qualified as a solicitor in Ireland in 1978 and became a partner at the firm of Mason Hayes & Curran in 1982, specializing in commercial law and related matters. Anthony now specializes in information technology, telecommunications, European and Irish competition law and general contract and commercial matters. Anthony is currently a member of the Irish Society for European Law, the Irish Council of the European Movement and the Irish Centre for European Law. Anthony is co-author of Irish Merger Control Law and the Irish section of Intellectual Property Laws of Europe. Anthony is also a regular contributor to many Irish publications, including WebIreland and Dot.ie.

Register.com Section 16 Officers

Resumes for Register.com’s Section 16 Officers can be found in Attachment 3.

Richard D. Forman President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Richard Forman co-founded register.com in 1994. He is responsible for guiding Register.com’s vision, mission and strategy. Rich has been Register.com’s Chief Executive Officer since March 1996 and its President since March 1998. He has served as one of its Directors since the company’s inception and as Chairman of the Board since May 1999. Since 1994, Rich has also been the President of Lease On Line, Inc., a real estate brokerage and management firm. In addition, Rich has managed real estate in the New York City area since August 1992. Rich was formerly a consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, Inc. in its New York City and Sydney, Australia offices. In 1987, Rich graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Management and Technology Program, and received his B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. In 1992, Rich received his M.S. in Real Estate from New York University.

Cindy E. Horowitz Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

As Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Register.com, Cindy Horowitz manages the accounting and finance functions of the company. She develops streamlined policies and procedures for cash management and strategic planning. Her responsibilities include developing finance strategy as it relates to overall corporate strategy of business development, diversification, and mergers and acquisitions as well as M&A strategy. She analyzes partners based on financial fundamentals, and makes recommendations to the Board of Directors.

Information Redacted per confidentiality statement to ICANN

Robert D. Gardos Chief Technology Officer

Jack S. Levy General Counsel and Secretary

As General Counsel and Secretary for Register.com, Jack Levy manages and ensures smooth function in of all legal functions of the Company, including compliance, SEC requirements, policy, contracts, M&A transactions, immigration issues, and litigation. He also acts as secretary to the Board of Directors. His responsibilities include managing the cost associated with departmental use of outside counsel.

Lauren M. Gaviser Director of Strategic Initiatives

As Director of Strategic Initiatives, Lauren Gaviser developed all of the primary relationships for Register.com’s policy and public affairs outreach. She has also been a lead in several proprietary business development initiatives. Her responsibilities include: Oversight of relationships with Network Solutions, the Dept. of Commerce, and ICANN regarding all non-technical issues revolving around the Company’s role as an accredited registrar; Recommendation of strategic partners and acquisitions candidates; Development of business cases for proposed new business opportunities; and Negotiation of contracts with strategic partners, including direct investment and long term relationship development.

Virtual Internet, Plc Directors

Resumes for Virtual Internet’s Board of Directors can be found in Attachment 3.

William Slee Chairman and Non Executive Director

William Slee became Chairman of Virtual Internet in February 2000. he has more than 30 years’ experience in international investment banking, having most recently been a Group Managing Director of Schroders plc and Vice Chairman of J. Henry Schroder & Co, Ltd. He is currently Chairman of De Nationale Investeringsbank, a leading wholesale bank in the Netherlands; Vice Chairman of Singulus Technologies AG, a German company, quoted on the Neuermarkt, which manufactures machinery for the optical disc storage industry; non-executive director of Charles Vogele Holdings AG, a publicly quoted Swiss based European outwear retailer; and a member of the Investment Committee of Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensionenfonds, on of the world’s largest pension funds.

Richard Cobb Company Secretary

Jason Drummond Chief Executive

Jason Drummond founded the original Virtual Internet business in 1996. He started Micromax his first venture, at the age of 15, distributing computer software through newsagents. At 18, he established IDL Communications Limited, a distributor of cellphones and fax machines. He spent approximately three years outside the UK, establishing and running distribution and new media companies in emerging markets such as Russia and Africa, and returned to the UK in 1995, prior to establishing Virtual Internet Limited.

Frederick Mostert Non Executive Director

Frederick Mostert received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law. He is a widely published expert in the area of trademark issues. As Intellectual Property Counsel and Executive Director for the Richemont Group of companies he conducted and oversaw major litigation matters, negotiated and drafted of intellectual property agreements, and secured intellectual property protection for new product development. These activities are undertaken in the areas of international trademark, copyright and patent law. His corporate experience includes work in the investment banking industry where he handled corporate finance matters including public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, due diligence investigations and general corporate representation. He is honorary chairman of the International Trademark Association and a Member of the Industry Advisory Commission of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). For WIPO, he is a Member of the Panel of Experts of the WIPO Internet Domain Name Process.

Tom Turcan Chief Operating Officer

Tom Turcan joined Virtual Internet in November 1999. Prior to this he was Business Development Director at News International plc, where he played a central role in a series of investment initiatives in magazines, newspapers, radio, telemarketing and new media in the UK and Continental Europe. After completing an MBA from London Business School in 1991, Tom worked for a year as a Strategy Associate for Gemini Consulting, and then spent four years as a key member of the corporate development team at Capital Radio plc. His career began in 1982 as a systems consultant and project manager for Logica plc, specializing in television and real-time communication systems. He holds a first class hours degree in Computational Science from St Andrews University.

Jonathan Wales Chief Financial Officer

(ii) and (iii) Officers and Managers

RegistryPro’s organizational chart (positions to be filled upon bid approval):

Figure 1: RegistryPro Organizational Chart

For information on RegistryPro’s recruitment plan, please refer to D7 above.

Register.com and Virtual Internet are committed to seeing RegistryPro succeed. The JV partners have put in place a multi-skilled, high level team to work with ICANN and the RegistryPro Board of Directors during the interim period of the bid, particularly during negotiation of the agreements, while the RegistryPro management team is being recruited and to supervise initial build up of the registry. Additional staffing and technical resources from within the JV partners and Baltimore Technology, will be available to RegistryPro and ICANN as needed during the negotiation phase.

Resumes for the JV Management and Technical Team can be found in Attachment 4.

The interim period JV Management and Technical Team is composed of:

From Register.com:

Richard Forman Chief Executive Officer

Cindy Horowitz Chief Financial Officer

Ronald A. Fried Senior Vice President, Business Development

Robert Gardos Chief Technology Officer

Internet kiosks. From December 1994 to April 1997, Rob worked as Senior Consultant for Ernst & Young where he managed system selection and implementation projects. From January 1994 to December 1994, Rob was an analyst for UMS Management group, a firm specializing in utility consulting. Rob received his B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Business, with a concentration in Finance.

Jack Levy General Counsel

Tom Roth Vice President, Human Resources

As Vice President of Human Resources for Register.com Tom Rogh manages the human resource function of the Company. He develops scalable compensation plans and review processes designed to accommodate the Company’s continued growth. He ensures compliance with all labor laws, including OSHA and EEOC and conducts executive searches as necessary using internal resources and recruitment consultants.

Jack Kerins Vice President, Customer Service

As Vice President of Customer Service for Register.com, Jack Kerins has complete P&L responsibility for the Customer Service department, the most rapidly growing department of the company. His duties include management of all vendors related to the call center environment. He oversees the Customer Service Managers (both technical and line managers). He has developed a strategic outsourcing plan for level 1 Call Center Support. He has also developed plans to improve customer satisfaction through the implementation of customer surveys, increased training, and supervision. While at Register.com, Jack has improved cost per customer (acquisitions costs) through the use of sophisticated technical enhancements and root cause analysis. Since he joined the company in early 2000, the metrics for response times have increased dramatically. He converted the customer service group from primarily an email center to a phone center with email support.

Elana Broitman Director, Policy and Public Affairs

As Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Register.com Elana Broitman ensures Register.com's adherence to ICANN regulations by actively working with internal technology, marketing, finance and customer service management. She acts as primary liaison with ICANN; develops consensus within registrar constituency for favorable policies; and drives initiatives for new TLDs. He position requires that she stay abreast of all policy developments as they effect registrar and registry interests.

Sloan Gaon Director, Business Development

As Director of Business Development for Register.com Sloan Gaon makes recommendations for potential strategic partners, as well as acquisition candidates. He analyzes the strategic and financial impact of potential mergers and acquisitions and negotiates new business initiatives, including joint ventures, strategic partners, and acquisition candidates.

From Virtual Internet:

Jason Drummond Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan Wales Chief Financial Officer

Richard Cobb Head of Legal Services

Mark Cartwright Technical Director

Having earned an MSc degree in Information Systems, Mr. Cartwright holds 17 years direct experience in the Internet, registry and registrar industries. Throughout his career in this capacity, he has managed hosting and DNS services, as well as the process to become Shared Registry System (SRS) operational registrar. His responsibilities have further included supplier management for telecommunications, hardware, software and Internet Data Center provisioning entities.

Nick Martin Corporate Finance Manager

Nick Martin qualified as a chartered accountant in 1991 at Arthur Andersen in London and has spent 10 years undertaking both operational and project finance roles. He has undertaken corporate finance and restructuring assignments in the UK, Egypt, Former Soviet Union countries and South East Asia. He has also acted as interim finance controller for a major UK retailer, General Manager for a large UK leasing company and provided financial policy advice to the governments and central bankers of South East Asia during the currency crisis of 1999. In June 2000 he joined Virtual Internet where he has undertaken a number of due diligence reviews of potential acquisition clients and successfully completed the acquisition of an Internet company.

Nick Wood Managing Director, Net Searches

Nicholas Wood joined Virtual Internet upon the acquisition of Net Searchers in April 1999. Prior to this he worked in freelance consultancy, corporate investigations and marketing management for 18 years. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and serves on committees for MARQUES, the Association of European Trade Mark Owners, INTA, the International Trade Mark Association as well as the Editorial Board of Trade Mark World magazine. He is co-author of “Domain Names: Global Law and Practice” to be published by Sweet & Maxwell in May 2000. He holds a BA (Hons) degree from London University and an MA from The City University.

Stephen Etheridge Special Projects Manager, Databases

Stephen Etheridge holds over 10 years of senior level experience, within both large corporate and small business environments. Having worked for such industry players as ShoutLoud.com, Henry Schein Technologies and Broadland Distribution, Mr. Etheridge possesses specific experience in high technology markets as well as a broad business, legal and financial knowledge.

(iv) Owners of over 5% of the RegistryPro Shares

100 Percent of the current shares are owned by Register.com and Virtual Internet.

D10. Name, telephone and fax number, and e‑mail address of person to contact for additional information regarding this proposal. If there are multiple people, please list all their names, telephone and fax numbers, and e‑mail addresses and describe the areas as to which each should be contacted.

For RegistryPro:
Elana Broitman
575 Eighth Avenue, 11^th Floor
New York, NY 10018, USA
Phone: 212-798-9100
Fax: 212-594-9876
Email: ebroitman@register.com

Sloan Gaon
575 Eighth Avenue, 11^th Floor
New York, NY 10018, USA
Phone: 212-798-9100
Fax: 212-594-9876
Email: sgaon@register.com

For Register.com, Inc.:
Elana Broitman
575 Eighth Avenue, 11^th Floor
New York, NY 10018, USA
Phone: 212-798-9100
Fax: 212-594-9876
Email: ebroitman@register.com

Sloan Gaon
575 Eighth Avenue, 11^th Floor
New York, NY 10018, USA
Phone: 212-798-9100
Fax: 212-594-9876
Email: sgaon@register.com

Virtual Internet Plc:
Nicholas Martin
Elysium House
126-8 New Kings Road
London, SW6 4LZ
England
Phone: 011 44 207 565 4085
Fax: 011 44 207 460 4070
Email: nick.martin@vi.net

D11. The full legal name, principal address, telephone and fax numbers, e‑mail address, and Dun & Bradstreet D‑U‑N‑S Number (if any) of all subcontractors identified in item D15.3 below.

Baltimore Technologies is a committed partner to the RegistryPro proposal. They are not a subcontractor to this business venture as the possibility of them becoming a RegistryPro equity holder is under discussion. Therefore, we have included information about them in this section of our application. Baltimore Technologies' 1999 Annual Report and the Interim Results for the six months ended June 30, 2000 can be found as Attachment 1 within this application.

Baltimore Technologies US Headquarters
77 A Street
Needham Heights, MA 02494
USA
Phone: (781) 455-3333
Fax: (781) 455-4005
DUNS Number: 964297782

Staff Size including all locations: 817

Baltimore Technologies in North America

Needham Heights, MA

Cambridge, MA

San Mateo, CA

New York, NY

McLean, VA

Raleigh, NC

Chicago, IL

Loxahatchee, FL

Atlanta, GA

Canada, ON

Baltimore Technologies in UK

Basingstoke, Hampshire

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

Parkgate Street, Dublin

Fitzwilliam Lane, Dublin

Baltimore Technologies in Europe

Amsterdam

Stockholm

Upplands Vasby, Sweden.

Munich

Madrid

Paris

Wavre, Belgium

Milan

Baltimore Technologies in Asia

North Sydney

Canberra

Singapore

Hong Kong

Tokyo

RegistryPro has sent requests for proposals for subcontractors to provide billing and customer service support and data escrow services. Proof of our activity in seeking bids in these areas and examples of received bids can be found as Attachment 5. However, we do not provide their addresses or DUNS numbers because final determinations for these functions will not be made until after ICANN approves our application. Sensitive pricing information in these Attachments has been redacted.

II. BUSINESS CAPABILITIES AND PLAN

D12. The second section of the Registry Operator's Proposal (after the "General Information" section) is a description of the registry operator's Business Capabilities and Plan. This section must include a comprehensive, professional‑quality business plan that provides detailed, verified business and financial information about the registry operator. The topics listed below are representative of the type of subjects that will be covered in the Business Capabilities and Plan section of the Registry Operator's Proposal.

[ ICANN will extensively review and analyze this section of the Registry Operator's Proposal. The content, clarity, and professionalism of this section will be important factors in ICANN's evaluation of applications. We strongly recommend securing professional assistance from financial and management consultants to aid in the formulation of your business plan, in securing the necessary sources of financing, and in preparation of this section.]

D13. The Business Capabilities and Plan section should consist of at least the following:

D13.1. Detailed description of the registry operator's capabilities. This should describe general capabilities and activities. This description also offers the registry operator an opportunity to demonstrate the extent of its business and managerial expertise in activities relevant to the operation of the proposed registry. The following items should, at a bare minimum, be covered:

D13.1.1. Company information. Date of formation, legal status, primary location, size of staff, formal alliances, references, corporate or other structure, ownership structure.

The applicant was incorporated in Ireland on February 14, 2000, with a primary location in Dublin, Ireland. The two shareholders are Register.com and Virtual Internet. The JV partners have entered into a formal arrangement with Baltimore Technologies to bring additional technology skills and capacity to RegistryPro, and as previously mentioned, an equity stake for Baltimore Technologies in RegistryPro is under discussion. References for the JV partners are listed in response to question D.13.4.2 below.

For the RegistryPro Board of Directors, staffing model, and plans for the initial staff support, please refer to D.9. RegistryPro has created a multi-faceted team of experts from Register.com and Virtual Internet so that immediately upon receiving approval from ICANN, RegistryPro can engage in the negotiation process and work on establishing a fully operational registry.

D13.1.2. Current business operations. Core capabilities, services offered, products offered, duration of provision of services and products.

RegistryPro will bank on the expertise of its three committed partners. Our responses to D13.1.3 and D13.1.4 identify the history and expertise of the partners and D13.2.1 identifies our plans to create a new restricted TLD, complete with a description of core capabilities, products and services and the duration of their provision.

The core capabilities of RegistryPro are drawn from the extensive experience that both its parent companies provide. Register.com’s strong core expertise is in providing a secure, stable and trusted Internet domain name registration service. Register.com supplements its core expertise with other online services to support its customers’ needs, such as web-hosting, trademark protection services, email and domain name forwarding, and website-creation tools. Virtual Internet contributes its core capabilities in Internet domain name registration, e-mail, website hosting and electronic commerce services, and Internet brand and trademark protection services to monitor the use and abuse of customers’ brands and trademarks on-line.

In this combined effort as RegistryPro, the new company’s business operations will be composed of the following features:

Services

The services offered by RegistryPro are designed to allow registrars to meet the burgeoning consumer need for different types of TLD and DNS services, whilst maintaining an orderly registry procedure that ensures proper rights and protections for brands and individuals.

Products

RegistryPro will build complementary products and proprietary communications software that will support consumer confidence and work to fulfill the needs of registrars as well as professional organizations and intellectual property interests.

For more in depth discussion of RegistryPro's operations, products and services please refer to Section D13.2.1.

D13.1.3. Past business operations/entity history. History, date of formation, legal status/type of entity, initial services, duration of provision of services and products.

RegistryPro combines the capabilities and experience of strong players with history and knowledge in the domain name industry. The corporate history for each of the JV partners and Baltimore Technologies that formed RegistryPro and an introduction to the services and products they have developed is provided below. RegistryPro services and products will be provided for the term of the ICANN agreement.

Register.com

Register.com was originally founded by Richard D. Forman, Peter A. Forman and Dan B. Levine as Forman Interactive Corp., a New York corporation, on November 23, 1994. Forman Interactive merged with and into Register.com, Inc., a Delaware corporation, on June 23, 1999. Register.com’s principal executive offices are located at 575 Eighth Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, New York 10018.

In April 1999, the Company was selected as one of the initial five testbed registrars to register general top level domain names by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In June 1999, the Company commenced online registration as an ICANN-accredited registrar of .com, .net and .org domains. In March 2000, Register.com issued an initial stock offering.

In a short time, Register.com has become one of the leading trusted registrars in the global market. Register.com ranked as one of the Top 100 Web Sites in PC Magazine’s April 1999 and July 1999 issues, and in POV Magazine’s November 1999 issue. It was also named one of the Fortune Magazine’s Top 25 Products to Watch in June 1999.

Register.com’s strong core expertise is in providing a secure, stable and trusted domain name registration service. Register.com has gained experience processing domain name registrations not only with gTLDs, but also in over 160 different country code TLDs (ccTLDs). Currently, ccTLD registries employ a wide range of registration systems and policies ranging from manual applications to processes that mirror the current gTLD SRS system. Register.com is in a unique position where it is able to leverage its knowledge of all of these various systems and choose the best aspects of each to find the most optimum way to run, and effectively manage, its own registry.

In all cases, registration is a simple six-step process that's fully automated and completely web based. Register.com provides a fast, easy service and excellent customer support. We will maintain this level of quality in the services of a new registry with which we would be involved.

Register.com supplements its core expertise with other online services to support its customers’ needs, such as web-hosting, trademark protection services, email and domain name forwarding, and website-creation tools.

Virtual Internet Plc

Virtual Internet is a leading European domain-based Internet services company offering solutions that enable businesses to communicate, sell products and protect their brands and trade marks on the Internet. VI provides Internet domain name registration, e-mail, website hosting and electronic commerce services that enable business to be undertaken on-line. In addition, VI provides Internet brand and trade mark protection services to monitor the use and abuse of customers’ brands and trade marks on-line. VI currently hosts over 75,000 domain name registrations and has experience of registering names in every ccTLD.

Virtual Internet’s original business was established in London in 1996 by Jason Drummond as a domain name registration company. Subsequently it has expanded its service offering and geographical coverage by a combination of organic growth, acquisitions and formation of strategic relationships. In September 1997, VI took a minority stake in VIS, a French company that acts as a domain-based services provider. In September 1999, VI purchased the remaining shareholding. VIS now provides the full range of VI’s products and, according to AFNIC, the French Registration Authority, is one of the leading domain-based services companies in France. It also holds exclusive or preferred supplier contracts with AOL France and CompuServe France for domain name registration, e-commerce, web site hosting and e-mail services.

In April 1999, VI acquired Net Searchers which had been established in the UK in 1996. Net Searchers provides intellectual property owners and their advisers with monitoring services on the Internet such as domain name searching, registrations and watching, tracking of intellectual property infringers, domain name reclaiming, Internet anti-piracy campaigns and copyright monitoring. The founder of Net Searchers, Nicholas Wood (managing director of Net Searchers), is a member of VI.

In the second half of 1999, the Group continued its international expansion from its existing operations in the UK and France. The Group now has offices in Beauvais and Paris in France, Milan in Italy and New York in the US.

VI has also sought to expand its business by way of strategic relationships with a number of companies. Examples of companies with whom VI have a strategic relationship are AOL France, Cobalt Networks, CompuServe France, Groupe Credit Mutual, Level (3) Communications, Microsoft Networks and Sage plc.

Baltimore Technologies

Baltimore Technologies is an international provider of information security products and services that enable companies, government agencies and other organizations to conduct secure communications and transactions over computer networks and the Internet. The Company enables its customers to conduct electronic business securely and to interact more effectively with their customers, suppliers and partners.

Since its inception, the Company has evolved from being a high-end security consulting firm advising mainly large government agencies and financial institutions, into an international electronic security provider specializing in a range of software- and hardware-based security products and services.

The business now conducted by Baltimore was originally established in November 1988 as Zergo by a management team led by Professor Henry Beker. Initially, Zergo was a consulting firm specializing in high-end security projects. In 1989, the Company acquired Data Innovation Ltd (now named Baltimore Technologies (UK) Limited), a company which had been trading since 1980 and was involved in the development and manufacture of security hardware products. The acquisition was funded by a syndicate of venture capitalists, led by Apax Partners and Co.Ventures Limited, which subscribed for shares, investing a total of £2.5 million.

The strategic objective of the acquisition was to create a specialist information security company able to provide a wide range of software and hardware products and services including systems integration, consulting and post-sales support. A major element of this strategy was to develop a set of cryptography-based software security products for use with a wide range of computer-based applications, platforms and systems.

Over the years Zergo developed a full complement of security products to augment its security consulting and systems integration expertise. During this time Zergo developed a strong customer list, featuring mainly high-end government agencies and financial institutions. In early 1995, existing and new investors subscribed £1.5 million for shares. The Company invested the proceeds in sales and marketing, product development and infrastructure projects and utilized the balance as working capital. In the same year, Zergo’s ordinary shares were admitted to trading on London’s Alternative Investment Market ( AIM).

On March 31, 1998, the Company acquired the entire issued share capital of Security Domain (now named Baltimore Asia Pacific Pty Ltd), a private Australian company, in consideration for the issue of 2,163,240 new Ordinary Shares. With this acquisition Zergo recognized the opportunity to apply its security expertise to the growing Internet-standard security market and provided the Company with new bases in Australia and United States.

On December 16, 1998 the Company signed an agreement to merge with a privately held Ireland-based company, Baltimore Technologies Limited for consideration of £47 million. A total of 9,071,292 new 1p Ordinary Shares of the Company at a market value of 485p each, and an aggregate of £3.0 millions of Loan notes were issued to fund this acquisition. The agreement was approved by shareholders on January 11, 1999. Baltimore Technologies offers a well-designed PKI product, UniCERT, whose core design is more similar to Zergo’s PKI architecture than the products of any other PKI player.

The Company’s revenues consist of license revenues together with related services, maintenance revenues, hardware sales and third party product revenues. The Company historically generated revenues primarily from information security systems and support services, consulting and systems integration. In 1998 the Company started licensing the rights to its software products to enterprise customers and resellers.

D13.1.4. Registry/database/Internet related experience and activities. Experience with database operation, Internet service provision.

The three partners creating RegistryPro have a strong and broad background in providing a range of Internet related services and database development. The two JV Partners have experience in servicing all ccTLDs and understand the pros and cons of offering different products, services and the infrastructure needed to perform these activities.

Register.com

Register.com was the first testbed registrar approved by ICANN to begin registering domain names in gTLDs. Since then, it has become one of the leaders in the domain name industry. Its core expertise and reputation are built on efficient, reliable and secure domain name registration services.

As outlined in D13.1.3, Register.com has gained experience with domain name registrations in the three gTLDs, as well as in 160 different ccTLDs, which use a broad range of registration systems, which Register.com has successfully applied. Through this broad experience, Register.com has learned the optimum way to run a registry in order to satisfy stability and efficiency goals. Register.com would draw upon this experience to build a strong, trusted and competitive registry. As a registrar, Register.com understands the needs of the registrar community and would bring that experience to bear in helping to manage the policies and business practices of the registry. For example, Register.com realizes the need for real time responsiveness of the Whois service to new registrations, transfers, modifications, and deletions. Register.com also appreciates the imperative for a responsive customer service, which can help address registration problems. Finally, Register.com has identified transparency, fair pricing, and immediate release of expired domain names as fundamental practices to promoting competition and consumer protection.

Register.com has been a leader in collaborating with ICANN and the various Internet constituencies. In coordination with the Intellectual Property constituency, Register.com helped to craft and establish the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process to effectively protect trademarks. Moreover, Register.com strictly enforces a corporate policy that protects the interests of its customers’ intellectual property interests. Register.com also participates in ICANN processes to craft fundamental DNS-related policies, including the Registrar Code of Conduct, a Best Practices Statement for the Aftersale Market, and an Escrow Policy. Not only has Register.com played a leadership role in these committees, the company has taken initiative in ensuring the best service to its customers and setting a standard for the registrar community.

Register.com also brings technical facilities and expertise to the process. The company provides DNS service for more than two million domain names making it the largest provider of authoritative DNS services in the world.

To support this service and its registrations, Register.com has implemented a highly scalable and redundant database infrastructure capable of supporting tens of thousands of new registrations daily.

Virtual Internet

Virtual Internet has over four years of experience in developing leading edge Internet products and servicing customers across Europe and the US. VI brings to the partnership a wealth of experience and knowledge of dealing both customers and suppliers on an international basis. The range of products it offers its customers reflects not only its experience but also its success to date. These products include:

Domain name registration: VI has been involved in the registration of domain names either as a retailer or wholesaler since incorporation. It is an ICANN accredited registrar for the registration of gTLDs. VI also undertakes the registration of domain names across all ccTLDs through its global fulfillment center. In July 2000, VI launched Nomodo which is a fully automated domain name and hosting registration site. Nomodo was developed in house by VI’s technical team and is fully automated at both the front and back end. VI currently hosts over 75,000 domain names.

VI runs a resilient DNS system for its hosted domain names using BIND. The in house technical team have designed and implemented a fully redundant DNS system which incorporates a DNS farm which will provide guaranteed 24X365 uptime.

Website hosting: This is a service VI provides to its customers which allows a customer to publish and maintain a website linked to its own domain name on a shared server. VI’s systems are located in three data centers at Fulham, Level (3) and Telehouse and its network spans all three. The DNS systems required to support domain name hosting comprise a primary server, based at Level (3), and a secondary server (based at Telehouse). Both sites have fully redundant networks to the London Internet Exchange. Level (3) – where the primary DNS server is located – has additional redundancy through its other gateways in, amongst others, places such as Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels – these provide connectivity to the other major, European Internet exchanges (DE-CIX in Germany, AMS-IX in the Netherdlands and SFINX in France).

Power supplies are fully protected using redundant supply, UPS and generator backup.

Access to Level (3) and Telehouse is rigorously controlled with measurers including

§ Access only permitted to nominated staff;

§ Protection using photo-card and PIN;

§ Palm-print identification system.

In the unlikely event of a failure of the primary DNS server requests are automatically routed to the secondary DNS located at Telehouse. VI have never experienced concurrent loss of both DNS servers and unplanned outage of the primary server.

Both servers are monitored by VI’s network management system which provides automatic and immediate alert of any problems – this includes pager alert. VI technicians respond within 5 minutes of any such alert on a 24 x 365 basis.

Database hosting: VI offers the following database hosting services Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server2 database and Postgres services. VI has also developed their own databases, these include:

§ a global name database holding over 20 million records.

§ Customer databases.

§ Registrar databases supporting VI’s production registrar service and providing whois services.

Virtual Internet also operates as a member of the Oracle Partnership Programme.

Internet brand and trade mark protection services: Virtual Internet, through its subsidiary Net Searchers provides a comprehensive set of Internet brand and trade work protection services. Net Searchers focuses on corporate naming and registration worldwide and specializes in the policing and monitoring the use of brands and trade marks on the Internet. The various services offered in these areas are:

§ Global naming - Registering domain names globally. There are 220 jurisdictions in the world where a domain name can be registered and VI has experience in all of these.

§ Domain name searching, watching and management - Provision of various domain name services, including checks on ownership, monthly monitoring and renewals.

§ Internet audits - An integrated service to identify where and how a customer, its brands and trade marks appear on the Internet.

§ Brand patrol - Monitoring and reporting on the use of a customer’s name, product, trade mark or logo on the web and in Internet discussion groups.

§ Infringer tracking and anti-piracy campaigns - A specialist service to support customers in identifying infringements, those persons behind them and providing a platform for legal enforcement.

§ Business and market intelligence - Provision of market surveys and specialist reports compiled from Internet information resources.

§ Specialist services - Such as Net Searchers Music, offering searches for copyright infringement within the music industry and information regarding sales of bootleg copies of performances by British artists on the Internet.

The Group has provided its brand and trade mark protection services to over half of the FTSE 100 companies and other well known companies, including:

Abbey National plc
AstraZeneca plc
BMW Group AG

Cable and Wireless plc
CNBC
Deutsche Bank AG

GlaxoWellcome plc
Rolls-Royce plc
Tesco plc

In addition, Net Searchers is retained by a number of law firms to assist those firms in developing commercial and trade mark protection strategies for their respective clients, including helping in the identification of trade mark infringers. Net Searchers has provided services to 17 out of the top 20 UK law firms as ranked by number of fee earners and listed in the Legal 500 (1999 edition) and carries out work for law firms in the US. In addition, Net Searchers is now developing its commercial relationships with continental European law firms.

Not only has Virtual Internet played an active role in the development of Internet products and services, it has also been involved in policy formulation at the highest level. Jason Drummond of Virtual Internet and Nick Wood of Net Searchers attended the meeting in 1997 in Geneva called by Jon Postel to discuss proposals for opening up the gTLD name space. They were amongst the original signatories of the IAHAC declaration at the end of that meeting and have participated in every stage of the process that led from the CORE-MOU through to the Green Paper, the White Paper and the WIPO Domain Name Process. Nick Wood was a founder member of the Intellectual Property Constituency of the Domain Name Supporting Organization, attending the first meeting on behalf of MARQUES, the European Brand Owners Association and the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys. He hosted the second meeting of the IPC in London and has coordinated meetings in London and Paris at which WIPO and ICANN representatives have introduced UDRP to the intellectual property constituency.

Baltimore Technologies

Baltimore Technologies’ flexible, interoperable and scalable e-security technology helps clients to conform to strict industry standards and regulatory requirements compromising the fundamentals of privacy and integrity. Baltimore UniCERT is an award winning certificate management system, used in e-security solutions to provide full strength security for a wide range of e-business and enterprise systems. UniCERT provides key management, authentication and non-repudiation of electronic transactions for financial services, governments, healthcare and e-service providers in over 40 countries worldwide.

Baltimore Technologies develops and markets security products and services to enable companies to develop trusted, secure systems for e-business, the Internet and mobile commerce. Its products include a wide range of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) systems, wireless e-security solutions, cryptographic toolkits, security applications, security infrastructure for mission critical Data Center environments, high-speed, reliable, secure cryptographic hardware. and hardware cryptographic devices. Baltimore's global professional services organization offers a wide variety of consulting, training and deployment support to its customers worldwide. Baltimore Technologies markets and sells its solutions worldwide directly and through the TrustedWorld™ channel program. Baltimore TrustedWorld includes many of the world's leading technology companies and a wide variety of global, regional and local business alliance partners.

D13.1.5. Mission. The registry operator's mission and how it relates to expansion into the registry operation field.

RegistryPro’s mission is to create a reliable, sustainable registry of licensed professionals such as doctors, lawyers and accountants, among others. By utilizing concrete registration requirements, RegistryPro will ensure that the professional status of any individual can be checked online.

The rationality of this mission as a business concept is derived directly from the increasing levels of uncertainty that consumers experience on the Internet. With the proliferation of Internet usage as a new, efficient and rapid communication and sales tool for businesses and professionals, Internet users are not only faced with the challenge of finding precisely what they are looking for, but, in the absence of substantial, time-consuming research, they are presently unable to confirm that the sites they use are legitimate. This is particularly important for the Internet’s facilitation of consumers and professionals connecting across diverse locations.

By adopting the notion of a restricted TLD, ICANN has laid the foundation for an Internet platform which underscores consumer confidence. RegistryPro believes that the appropriate starting point for a restricted registry is for professional services. Society has already dictated a need for the licensing of these professionals to protect consumers against fraud. The logical extension of these regulations to the Internet is to provide a TLD --.pro-- where practitioners of the professions can register and communicate to the consumer evidence of their professional qualifications.

RegistryPro will not only provide a more reliable and robust service to .pro registrants and registrars, but also raise the standards for registry responsiveness and effectiveness. RegistryPro is committed to establishing a new benchmark for registry functionality. The .pro registry will implement registrations in real time, run on a redundant network to ensure reliability, and establish a centralized Whois database that will allow for robust searching capability.

RegistryPro’s aim is to improve the reliability and responsiveness of the registry system at all levels—through technological, business and policy advancements. The experience that the RegistryPro joint venture partners have had as registrars provides unique insight into the need for improved registry services. By raising the standard of those services, RegistryPro will help improve the practices of the industry and foster competition among registries. RegistryPro is committed through its experience and talent to developing such a registry for the benefit of registrars and the public.

Business Overview

With its extensive business and marketing plan, RegistryPro will attract consumers to the registrars registering .pro names. RegistryPro will provide professionals and consumers with a new, more accurate and ordered system by which they might define and find professional services on the Internet.

A secondary, but important void that will be served by the creation of .pro as a TLD address is the lack of domain names available to professionals to distinguish their line of work. The limited number of the available popular or attractive names and the broad lines of registrants claiming .com registrations is a source of confusion among consumers seeking professionals on the web. It undermines the professionals’ use of the DNS – the Internet lags behind basic published directories in this sense. By creating a .pro TLD, professionals may be more likely to use the Internet as a resource to attract and communicate with consumers.

The .pro TLD will establish secondary domain names tailored to specific professions which will assist in ensuring maximum availability of domain names and in enabling the consumer to make distinctions among professionals. For example, JamesRClarke.doc.pro can easily be distinguished from JamesRClarke.law.pro and enables two James R. Clarkes to have a .pro designation.

The .pro TLD will become, in some respects, a directory of professionals locally and around the world. For example, if you are referred to a lawyer in Hong Kong, a simple check of JohnWLee.law.pro will indicate that Mr. Lee is indeed a licensed attorney in Hong Kong and presumably Mr. Lee will either have a website for his domain name or a referral to the website of the firm with which he practices. Similarly, if a consumer in New York is looking for a doctor, an Internet search on med.pro will enable her to find one. Even with the systems and technology presently in place, there is still no other tool offering this fundamental organized approach to Internet users.

We believe the .pro TLD will become extremely popular in the professional community and that it will address a number of currently unmet needs. The .pro TLD administered by RegistryPro will:

· Increase the available pool of attractive domain names;

· Foster the professionals’ ability to distinguish themselves on the Internet;

· Foster consumer confidence that the professionals listed with a .pro TLD have provided evidence of their professional qualifications; and

· Offer policies and safeguards to ensure all registrars the security and protection they require for their trademarks and other professional and consumer rights.

By developing market niche registry categories, RegistryPro believes that .pro will help consumers navigate through the DNS. RegistryPro will establish those professional categories with readily identifiable and traditional self-governance mechanisms in place for independent verification. This course will further stabilize the expanded DNS, simplify consumer navigation, and support operational transparency.

Key Business Strategies

RegistryPro will employ quantifiable evaluation methods to continuously improve its business models and enhance the registrars’ and end users’ experience. Through regular analysis of its brand positioning and strategic deployment, RegistryPro will maintain and update technical standards, measure overall efficiency and manage risk.

Key components of RegistryPro’s business strategy include:

Ø The deployment of a solid technical infrastructure and policies that support open, real time registrar services. RegistryPro believes that this is essential in order to foster growth and competition among registries.

Ø The leveraging of the core financial and technological strength of RegistryPro. Through its partners, RegistryPro will provide maximum and sustained competition at the registry level where smaller, less well capitalized enterprises may not have staying power.

Ø The focus of resources on creating a system that protects domain name holders from unscrupulous activity and system failures.

Ø The formation of alliances with professional associations and accrediting agencies. Through these alliances, RegistryPro will have an invaluable tool to help guide policies and procedures to protect the .pro standard.

Ø With these relationships, RegistryPro will develop registrant and consumer support for the new TLD as well as to offer new services for association members and new tools for consumers in search of these professionals.

Ø The implementation of a strategic marketing plan which adopts innovative and traditional advertising and promotion initiatives, in particular through the professional associations aligned with the .pro TLD.

The cornerstone of RegistryPro’s business is predicated upon a few key elements that are essential to clear and efficient use of Internet-based electronic communication:

¨ Structured and robust technical systems - to guarantee a stable, sustainable and expandable infrastructure;

¨ Broad and flexible policy development – in partnership with ICANN to promote diverse commercial enterprises through orderly registration processes and data flow;

¨ Effective security measures - to protect consumer rights, brands and trademarks;

¨ Transparent operations - to engender confidence among consumers and business partners;

¨ Solid business plans - to respond quickly to future developments including both expanding and contracting economies and markets;

¨ Effective leadership - to provide experienced and stable authority to formulate policy and operate a long-term, effective and profitable business; and

¨ Independent and trusted policy enforcement – to support ICANN’s mission.

RegistryPro represents a clear opportunity for a new and more user friendly Internet.

D13.1.6. Management. Qualifications and experience of financial and business officers and other relevant employees. Please address/include past experience, resumes, references, biographies.

Refer to Appendix 1 for job descriptions for key management team members to be recruited per the staffing plan identified in our response to D13.1.7, Attachment 2 for resumes RegistryPro directors, and Attachment 4 for resumes of the interim Management and Technical Team.

D13.1.7. Staff/employees. Current staff size, demonstrated ability to expand employee base, hiring policy, employee training, space for additional staff.

The following organizational chart shows the staffing structure to be filled by RegistryPro upon ICANN application approval.

Figure 2: RegistryPro Organizational Chart

RegistryPro anticipates the total number of employees needed in the initial buildout will be 27. It is also estimated that four IT contractors will be required to assist in the initial buildout.

The entities which are combining resources to build RegistryPro have a demonstrated track record in building stable, secure, long-term, and highly functional operational units in order to meet the extraordinary growth demands of the Internet infrastructure business.

Register.com, with just 15 employees in the fall of 1998, grew to 60 employees by June of 1999. This period of extraordinary growth, accomplished in less than six months time, was a critical implementation of hiring practice and organizational development to accomplish the strategic goals of the impending quarter. Early in 1999, Register.com, inc. was working aggressively to build internal infrastructure, both operationally and technically, to meet the ICANN requirements for consideration as an official registrar. Against the odds, Register.com met these requirements in unforeseen timeframes. A majority of the key personnel comprising this initial group of employees have developed into the leaders of Register.com.

From June of 1999 to the present, Register.com has more than tripled the employee base to our present headcount of 217. It also bears mentioning that this aggressive growth was all accomplished during one of the tightest labor markets in recent history. Despite the rapidity of growth, Register.com is a rarity among Internet companies, with low turnover rates in strategic and operational areas.

The combination of low-turnover rates and leadership development of company founders point to another important track record; that is, effective hiring practice.

Register.com’s hiring methodology was implemented in December of 1998, via presentation to the senior management team and individual workshops. Some of the fundamentals of the Company’s employee hiring policies include:

§ Minimum of three interviews

§ Prior to any search initiation, required drafting of a detailed job description including 6 month strategic goals, with recommended salaries approved through the Finance group

§         Ongoing development of interviewing skills, including:
     Training in performance-based questioning
     Development of listening skills
     Resume assessment
     Interviewing protocol (70% listening, 30% talking)
     Critical evaluation of response to “good chemistry”

§ Extensive reference checking, with a minimum requirement of 3 professional references, of which two are former supervisors

§ Validation of employment record, including salary information

§ Credit, security, and arrest record checks where appropriate

Once employees have been hired, RegistryPro plans to model an employee training program on that which has been implemented at Register.com, entitled “Customer Service College.” This curriculum is ever-evolving as the company introduces new products and functionality to the website, and addresses the technical intricacies of the domain name registration business. Much of the curriculum, including tutorials on the architecture of the Internet, the network relationship between registrars and registries, DNS, domain name forwarding, and registry transfer will be easily adapted to RegistryPro. Additionally, Register.com, inc. presently offers training in areas of organization development, including leadership and time management skills, sexual harassment awareness, tech-for-dummies” training, and interviewing skills workshops.

Virtual Internet has similar growth experience to Register.com. On October 31, 1998, the Company had 11 employees. One year later, it had more than tripled in size to 39. And less than one year later, it had grown again to 146 staff members.

D13.1.8. Commercial general liability insurance. Address/include amount of insurance policy, provider of policy, plans for obtaining additional insurance.

Virtual Internet has secured a letter from Jequier Newitt Insurance Brokers confirming their interest in providing RegistryPro a $14 million employer’s liability insurance policy in addition to other coverage. This letter and other proof of this insurance policy are attached to this application as Attachment 6.

Similarly, Register.com has secured a letter from Erich Courant & Co, Inc. Insurance Services confirming their interest in providing general, director and other liability insurance policies to RegistryPro. This letter is attached as Attachment 6.

D13.2. Business plan for the proposed registry operations. This section should present a comprehensive business plan for the proposed registry operations. In addition to providing basic information concerning the viability of the proposed operations, this section offers the registry operator an opportunity to demonstrate that it has carefully analyzed the financial and operational aspects of the proposal. At a minimum, factors that should be addressed are:

D13.2.1. Services to be provided. A full description of the registry services to be provided.

RegistryPro will create and operate a “thick” registry, the architecture of which is laid out in Section III of the application. The registry will provide all of the services necessary for proper utilization of the DNS, while maintaining authoritative Whois records in one centralized database.

The registry will provide three basic services. It will interface with registrars so they can submit registrations and modifications, or check the availability or other status of requested domain names. It will also house and provide authoritative centralized Whois database for .pro names. Finally, it will provide top level naming service (DNS service) delegating .pro lookups to the appropriate authoritative servers.

This “thick” registry architecture, rather than a “thin” architecture, is especially beneficial to the .pro TLD structure. Not only will it be easier to carry out Whois queries (in order to search for cases of trademark infringement or other misuses of the TLD) with all of the information centralized in one location, but it will also be much easier to change records and automate transfers. Further, .pro will have a unified and continuous restriction policy, which would be supported by periodically updated Whois records. Although role of keeping the Whois updated will remain with registrars, the “thick” architecture will allow the registry to flag records that are in need of updates and automatically alert registrars.

RegistryPro's business operations will be composed of the following features:

Core Capabilities

· Registry Operations - The registry will interface with registrars, house and provide all Whois information for .pro names, and provide top level naming services (DNS service) delegating lookups to appropriate authoritative servers. Operating the shared registration system allows registrars to register new second level domain names on behalf of registrants, as well as submit modifications, transfers, renewals, and deletions of existing second level domain names.

· Centralized Whois Plus – The registry will meet the capability present in the current .com, .net, and .org registries, and enhance such capability with increased information on each registrant and increased and centralized search functionality.

· Database development and maintenance - development and maintenance of the databases for the .pro TLD and Sublevel Domains (SLDs) - including maintenance of domain names through frequent real time updates to the Internet and maintenance of all second level domain names in the .pro TLD and SLDs.

· System backups and secondary systems - In addition to providing unparalleled levels of system and data security, RegistryPro will encourage the adoption of new security measures for the entire Internet community, such as DNS security extensions.

· System security - RegistryPro digital security system will provide highly redundant services, including operational facilities for core registry functions on two continents. Extensive backups and data escrow further guarantee the availability of registry information.

· System maintenance and improvement - RegistryPro will pro-actively maintain and upgrade all systems to ensure continuous operation and maximum performance of the registry. These activities and the security measures that will be employed will help us respond to unexpected system failures.

· Customer Service Functions – including 24/7 technical help desks and other customer service support, billing of registrars and collections services

Current Combined Capabilities

§ Internet expertise - based on the experience of the joint venture partners, Register.com and Virtual Internet, and new supporting partner Baltimore Technologies.

§ Software writing and management – based on the experience of the joint venture partners, Register.com and Virtual Internet and their supporting partner Baltimore Technologies.

§ Facility management - based on the experience with running registrar facilities and name servers of Register.com and Virtual Internet and the secure site management of their supporting partner Baltimore Technologies.

§ TLD experience – based on the experience of joint venture partners in registering names across all ccTLDs and .com, .net, and .org.

§ Security – based on Baltimore Technologies’ credentials as a trusted secure facility.

§ Telecommunications Infrastructure - telecommunications systems to meet the demands of customer registrations received by e-mail, telephone and facsimile.

§ Human Resources Expertise – proven experience in ramping up quickly to meet the needs of a rapidly growing company.

Services and Products

§ Intellectual Property Searches - RegistryPro would provide the ability to search its authoritative .pro directory by more zone fields and text strings. For example, a corporate lawyer would be able to search .pro names that include the string "ibm" for possible misuses of that trademark and get increased results.

§ Digital Security Services - RegistryPro would provide encryption and secure certificate technology to the registrars it interfaces with. This will greatly decrease the chances of information being stolen when it is in transit between registrars and the registry and prevent tampering with registry information by malicious users (hackers).

§ Software toolkits - At no cost, RegistryPro would provide the registrar community with toolkits to facilitate their creation of systems to interact with the shared registry system.

§ Centralized Whois Plus – RegistryPro would reduce the burden on registrars of managing Whois information, while retaining registrars’ central role as the interface between registrants and the registry.

§ Compliance Capabilities – RegistryPro would offer registrars the capability to comply with the data-related requirements imposed by ICANN and their various jurisdictions.

§ Professional web site and intranet development —RegistryPro may offer technology services in the areas of architecture, implementation and support to large enterprises and Internet service providers to improve their operations. One product, WebProPage,^TM is a template driven page available to every registrant that will pull noteworthy information from that registrant's Whois data. This data will include both general information and certain facts germane to the registrant's professional and qualifications, i.e., name, address, email, degree attained, specialty, etc.

§ Other Technology and Programming Services — RegistryPro would offer network engineering, network and systems security and network management services.

§ Software and hardware solutions — RegistryPro would improve consumers' use of the Internet and their registered domain names. This includes a proprietary communications platform for professionals and their customers currently in discussions to be developed.

§ Other related products are in the early stages of conception and development.

Duration of provision of services and products

RegistryPro anticipates that it will provide the core capabilities at the outset, except that certain advanced search capabilities will be available shortly thereafter, for the duration of the agreement. RegistryPro will continue to research and develop additional innovative products and services to enhance the DNS, meet the needs of registrars, registrants and other core registry communities.

D13.2.2. Revenue model. A full description of the revenue model, including rates to be charged for various services.

The revenue model calculates the monthly profit and loss for RegistryPro for its first four years of operations. The model links to a cash flow statement and balance sheet to determine both maximum cash requirement for the entity and the solvency of the entity. For the purposes of RegistryPro’s business plan, it has been assumed that the sale of registrations will be achieved at the 50% confidence level. A copy of the Business Plan Financial Projections and Complete Model (50% confidence level) which includes an assumptions page can be found as Appendix 2. Also attached are Summary Financial Projections reflecting demand at the 10%, 50% and 90% confidence levels. These are attached as Appendices 3, 4 and 5 respectively.

The model consists of the following worksheets:

§ A revenue waterfall worksheet that calculates on a monthly basis the amount of sales income to defer and the amount of deferred income that can be released to sales. The model assumes a standard cost of $6.00 (plus VAT where applicable) per registration per year for an average period of 2 years. Sales income is deferred over 24 months. Renewals are anticipated to commence in year 3 at a rate of 75%.

§ A cost of revenue waterfall worksheet which calculates on a monthly basis the amount of cost to be deferred using the same principle as the revenue waterfall. The model, as it currently operates, does not defer any costs as no variable costs of sales are deemed to exist. An amount of technical labor costs is included in cost of revenue but these are not deferred.

§ A headcount worksheet that details the number of employees, their joining date, position and salary. A fringe rate of 22% has been included to take into account employer’s national insurance and an employee performance incentive scheme. Labor costs are anticipated to increase at a rate of 10% per annum. Details of headcount numbers and total costs are included in Section D7 and 13.2.11.

§ A capital input worksheet that identifies the type of capital expenditure required, the amount, the monthly depreciation rate and the net book value. All fixed assets are depreciated over a three year period. Further details of capital expenditure are included in 13.2.11.

§ A detailed profit and loss account that provides a breakdown of revenue and costs on a monthly basis. From a revenue perspective, we have assumed that RegistryPro commences operations in month 6 and that during the initial sunrise and landrush period, 1,000,000 registrations are sold. After this period, registrations are anticipated to be approximately 90,000 a month and increase at between 0% to 10% per month depending on the level of marketing activity.

This worksheet also provides a line by line analysis of the costs involved in the operations of RegistryPro. Unless costs have been specifically calculated in earlier worksheets, these have been input into this worksheet. The majority of costs are anticipated to increase at the rate of 5% per annum. However sales and marketing costs for the first year have been specifically calculated and are based on the marketing budget in Section 13.2.4. A number of activities will be outsourced (such as customer services, billing and escrow agents) and a current estimate for these costs have been included. Contracts for these costs will be subject to a formal bidding process and the costs may vary as a result of this. We have assumed an annual payment to ICANN of $250,000 per annum increasing by 5% per annum. Bank interest is calculated based on the monthly net cash balance (excluding balance sheet movements) at the rate of 12% per annum.

§ A summary profit and loss worksheet details the monthly profit and loss of RegistryPro, grouping costs by their appropriate category of cost of revenue; sales and marketing; and general and administrative. This sheet also separately details the charges in respect of amortization and depreciation, bank interest and corporation tax.

It should be noted that the model does not include an amount in respect of return on capital to the joint venture partners or other long-term funders. This is projected to be approximately 20% per annum.

It should be noted that the easiest way to view the Business Plan Financial Projections and Complete Model (attached at Appendix 2) is electronically using the files that can be found on the application CD located in the Transmittal Form binder. Please note that it is not necessary to open the link files when viewing the model.

D13.2.3. Market. Market definition, size, demand, accessibility.

The estimated worldwide market for all professionals is approximately 29.5 million and anticipated to grow at 5 percent per annum. For the sake of a stable rollout, RegistryPro has defined its initial target market to include doctors, lawyers and accountants. In order to focus marketing efforts, RegistryPro will first target its marketing and outreach efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, although we expect a spill over benefit worldwide. Subsequent to the initial rollout, the target market will be expanded worldwide.

The rollout will include all other countries and remaining professions for which subdomains of .pro TLD may be rolled out. The initial target market was selected based upon three factors: first, these markets are historically well populated with “early adopters” who are likely to drive demand for .pro; second, these markets are well populated with high percentages of professionals as compared to total population; and third, these markets are highly populated with Internet users and have among the highest number of domain name registrations worldwide.

Based upon census information in the US, the UK and Japan the approximate number of doctors, lawyers and accountants in each respective market are:

Doctors Lawyers Totals

United States 1,315,000 1,710,000 3,025

United Kingdom 27,400 80,000 107,400

Japan 310,275 544,570 854,845

Subtotal 1,939,675 2,423,370 3,987,245

Accountants 2,762,755

Total 6,750,000

No concrete data can be ascertained regarding certified and/or chartered accountants in the target markets, but professional associations estimate total memberships at 2.76 million.

Demand for the .pro TLD has been assessed based on (1) in depth interviews with certain professionals and decision makers and (2) a consumer sampling of more than 1000 consumers in the US and a similar sample in the UK. The concept of .pro was extremely well received and more than 94% of the surveyed consumers indicated that they would be likely to look for professionals under .pro domain name. Since consumer usage will, in large part, drive domain name registration by professionals, demand for the .pro TLD is estimated to be high. RegistryPro’s market research reports can be found as Attachment 16.

Accessibility to the market will depend to some degree on the relationships RegistryPro will be able to establish among professional organizations. Market accessibility will grow as professional associations learn of the benefit of .pro for their member services. Furthermore, efforts to coordinate domain name registration with traditional subscriptions and membership registration/renewal should facilitate market access.

D13.2.4. Marketing plan. Advertising, publicity, promotion strategy, advertisement development strategy, relationship with advertising firm. Use of registrars and other marketing channels.

The marketing plan developed by RegistryPro is intended to cover the product launch for the .pro TLD and its initial offering of second-level domains of .law.pro, .med.pro, and .cpa.pro. Initially, we intend to focus on .cpa within the accounting market and to expand this second level domain to other acronyms which represent accounting professions in the target markets (e.g. aca in the UK).

Although RegistryPro, as the registry for the .pro TLD, will offer its product to registrars, for ultimate vending to professionals, the success of the TLD will, to a large degree, depend upon its acceptance by the consumer as a reliable source for locating professionals. Similarly, professionals must also have confidence that the registry and the new TLD usage are unbiased, accurate and reliable.

Accordingly, public education and marketing efforts need to be initiated and supported by RegistryPro to create and support the demand for the product. The target market of professionals will require a consistent delivery of the message communicated by the marketing campaign developed for .pro. RegistryPro has developed a marketing plan and strategies to address not only the initial launch period, but also the issue of support for the TLD in the initial markets over the remaining periods of the license.

RegistryPro’s outreach will fundamentally benefit all registrars as they will be the first line recipients of increased demand. The growth of the premium .pro registrations will translate into increased resources for all competitor registrars. Public education will also help professionals and their use of the web, as their clients and customers will have an easier, more reliable way to reach them.

The launch of restricted commercial TLDs (as opposed to .edu or ccTLDs) is a new concept for which little or no prior data exists. Although ICANN may be introducing one or more new unrestricted TLDs and/or additional restricted TLDs, RegistryPro does not expect direct competition for the unique product it provides. The .pro TLD provides alternatives and choice to new Internet consumers and current Internet users. The new restricted .pro TLD will create a competitive benchmark for best practices and standards for other registries to emulate.

Due to the worldwide exposure and functionality of the .pro TLD, another unique feature of RegistryPro’s marketing strategy is the measured global rollout of the product launch, focusing first on the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. The marketing strategy is focused on making sure that .pro will be geographically distributed and serve registrants and consumers world-wide.

Target Market

The initial target market for the product launch will comprise the legal, medical and accounting professions. Although from the start professionals from around the world will be able to register in .pro, the marketing focus will begin with the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Within the target markets, efforts will be directed to the major metropolitan areas with significant populations of doctors and lawyers. Thereafter, rollouts will be determined in large part together with the professional associations around the world.

To contribute to the development and implementation of the new .pro TLD and link our activities to relevant professional associations, RegistryPro is creating an advisory board. For a description of this board see our response to question E10 in the TLD Policies Description. Resumes for the individuals who have already expressed interest in joining the advisory board can be found in Attachment 17.

The rationale for selecting medical, legal, and accounting professionals is that they comprise nearly 65% of all professionals worldwide (extrapolated from market research), and are therefore the most likely to adopt the .pro domain in significant numbers thereby ensuring the stability of the TLD and the registry. As compared to other geographic regions, the first-line geographic targets similarly contain the highest concentration of doctors and lawyers and are geographically distributed and represent three of the ICANN geographic regions.

In the secondary phase, the marketing campaign will expand to other regions, even though we expect that there will penetration of those regions from the start due both to the cross-border nature of the marketing and the member information services of the professional associations.

RegistryPro plans a targeted roll out of .pro to other professions. RegistryPro is presently contemplating and will decide with its Advisory Board what other appropriate second-level domains might be appropriate. Examples of other second level domains could include:.dent (dentists) and .arc (architects). In each instance, RegistryPro will ensure that the registration process is feasible. The objective is to satisfy professional demand and make .pro a competitive alternative.

RegistryPro’s Marketing Objectives

RegistryPro’s short term marketing objectives are:

§ to position .pro as a user-friendly, reliable and trustworthy source of information among all of its audiences;

§ to communicate the value of .pro as an indispensable consumer resource;

§ to educate .pro among significant populations of doctors, lawyers and accountants; and

§ to be a new, viable registry competitor.

The rationale for these objectives is to create a space within the Internet which is a well-ordered and reliable segment. The aim of this effort is to, not only improve the Internet as a whole, but to increase its usability among a population not currently availing itself of a web presence.

RegistryPro’s long term marketing goals will be to continue to drive demand for the .pro TLD, as well as to expand the depth and breadth of the professionals within the .pro TLD.

RegistryPro’s Sales Objectives

Year 1 and 2:

The initial sales objectives for years one and two are to generate - through registrars - total registrations of approximately three million which would represent the registration of an initial share of 25% of the target market and 5% of spillover into the unduplicated worldwide markets for all professionals.

Years 3 through 4:

During years 3 and 4, we anticipate that penetration of the target market will reach 31% and that unduplicated worldwide penetration of all professionals will increase to 25%. As a result total registrations in years 3 and 4 are predicted to be 5.4 million. Total registrations for the four-year period are projected to be 8.4 million.

Due to the nature of the market to which we are driving the .pro TLD, renewals are anticipated to be high and we have estimated a 75% renewal rate in years 3 and 4. This equates to registrations of 965,951 and 1,287,496 respectively.

The rationale for these sales objectives will allow RegistryPro to attain its revenue projections while at the same time investing substantial capital to build and support the “brand” of the new TLD, .pro.

Key Attributes

.pro represents a new product launch within a previously undefined market. It is however, important to consider the important attributes of the product in conjunction with the development of the positioning strategy and the advertising message. With .pro, RegistryPro considers the key attributes of product importance to include:

§ consumer confidence

§ evidence of qualification

§ reliability of technology

§ domain name availability

§ price

Positioning Strategy

RegistryPro intends to position the .pro TLD as the source for (i) consumers to locate professionals on the Internet; and (ii) to introduce professionals to the Internet as a way to enhance their businesses and communications efforts.

Through the introduction of the core product (.pro TLD) and complementary products (see product strategies below) RegistryPro will communicate the value proposition of a restricted TLD and the .pro TLD for both consumers and professionals.

Marketing Strategies

Build v. Steal the Market Strategies:

Because .pro is a new product launch in a wholly unique environment, RegistryPro must adopt a “build the market” approach rather than “stealing” market share from a competitor.

Some professionals do not register domain names today because they feel their sites would be lost among the proliferation of .com names, and therefore do not add value. Professionals who have registered an existing TLD, would likely see .pro as an opportunity to augment his or her Internet presence.

Global, National and Regional Strategies:

By concentrating the rollout effort on professional associations that will create registration opportunities for their members, RegistryPro can leverage its marketing effort worldwide. RegistryPro will look to its RegistryPro Advisory Board to help identify the appropriate professional associations with which to seek alliances.

An international marketing campaign aimed at the final consumers, “top of mind” and unaided awareness will help drive demand through the consumer to the professional. RegistryPro will maximize its global effort by directing the rollout toward professional associations, creative registration opportunities for members. The strategy will be adopted to meet the particular requirements in each market internationally.

Seasonal Strategies:

RegistryPro will focus efforts at those times of the year when likely .pro registrants enter the professions (e.g., passing the bar exam, graduating from medical school)

The rationale for this strategy is three-fold:

§ first, attractiveness of new technologies is appealing to the young professionals;

§ second, registration in .pro can be done at the same time as “certification” paperwork with little or no additional work required; and

§ third, renewals of registration, listings, etc. is likely to fall within the anniversary periods of the initial certification.

Target Market Strategies:

RegistryPro is anticipating an approximate penetration rate of 31% of its initial target market of doctors, lawyers and accountants and 25% of the total population over the 4 year period to achieve its sales projections (assuming a 5% per annum growth rate in the total population). These strategies will focus on incentivizing or recruiting the early adopters and in converting the largest professional organizations.

As previously mentioned in this application, RegistryPro has already contacted key professional associations in the US and in Europe. While a number of professional associations expressed interest and support, due to the short time frame of the application process, we obtained letters of support from associations where we could. They can be found as Attachment 7 within this application.

Upon approval of RegistryPro’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board, we will work with these professional organizations and others to refine registration qualification guidelines and gain endorsements for RegistryPro’s member outreach efforts. With these professional associations RegistryPro will be able to effectively use target market strategies to build awareness.

Product Strategies:

RegistryPro will offer complementary products (WebProPage™, digital security applications, database management and search tools, multi-lingual capabilities and proprietary communications software) that will support consumer and core constituencies’ confidence and work well to fulfill the needs of registrars and the various associations and professional organizations outlined herein. Combining registration opportunities in conjunction with professional memberships will create functional utility and lower costs.

First, RegistryPro is considering the WebProPage™ which will provide registration information such as each professional’s name, qualification year of registration, educational background and specialty listings. As the registry develops its product and makes it available to the registrars, all professionals will have a uniform “listing” page from which their website or the website of their firms can be accessed.

RegistryPro also has built-in capacity to provide digital security products to protect email and other forms of e-commerce.

RegistryPro is also considering proprietary software to provide professionals who do not have websites or other web-accessibility with basic communications platforms in order to better serve their clients/patients. An example would be a communications tool which would allow business or leisure travelers to make inquiries of their doctors regarding a symptom or the transmission of prescription information among doctors and/or pharmacists.

Branding Strategies:

RegistryPro’s branding strategy is aimed at developing .pro as the reliable online authority for locating professionals who have provided evidence of their qualifications. As a source of information, RegistryPro can also expand and brand the function of the registry with valuable incremental services while maintaining the autonomy and credibility.

Pricing Strategies:

The pricing strategies for RegistryPro will focus on penetration, the improved technological and business standard of .pro, and the value-added services provided to the registrars. RegistryPro is presently contemplating a $6 per annum (plus VAT where applicable) registration price which is in line with Verisign/Network Solutions’ current rate.

Promotion Strategies:

Initial promotional strategies will include collaborations with the professional associations . Promotional strategies will be focused and intensified as participating professional organizations endorse the new TLD.

Advertising Message Strategies:

The advertising message strategies will focus on education and product value added awareness from both the consumer and the professional point of view. Developing “top of mind” and unaided awareness will be critical among consumers who will in turn drive the demand by the professionals. The message will convey the underlying tenants of reliability and confidence associated with .pro as a TLD.

Advertising Media Strategies:

Much of the media strategies to be adopted will be the responsibilities of the registrars who are actively engaged in marketing the TLDs. RegistryPro will however, develop materials for use in registrar marketing and encourage aggressive media strategies at the registrar level. Much of the media placement strategy on behalf of RegistryPro will be educational in nature and focus on the trade publications developed by associations.

Publicity Strategies:

The focus of the publicity will be on educating the consumer and the professional not only to the availability of the TLD as a source of information, but also as a platform for new and unique business and communication opportunities. RegistryPro will develop a public relations plan. Elements of the program to be implemented will include speaking engagements to raise public awareness, and the support and encouragement of registrars to attend and sponsor events at various worldwide conferences.

Our public relations strategy will help build awareness of the DNS among all consumers.

Marketing Research and Testing Strategies:

As set forth above, RegistryPro will engage in substantial research, testing and evaluation in its continued effort to promote the TLD and ensure customer satisfaction.

§ RegistryPro will make appropriate adjustments on a continuing basis to improve and hone messages and refocus its budget to maximize the success of the marketing campaign. Testing will include the usability among consumers and the education required to obtain consumer support. RegistryPro will also develop on-going research tracking studies to monitor consumer awareness, attitudes and behaviors. Careful market research will support targeted roll out of new sub-domains and related products in order to ensure that RegistryPro can fulfill demand and appropriately allocate its resources.

§ RegistryPro will regularly canvass its customers, the registrants, to ensure that it is seen as technologically robust and reliable, and responsive to customer queries. RegistryPro will announce, explain, and promote its fundamental services and secondary products to the registrar community to increase registrar participation and competition at the registry level.

RegistryPro 2001 Draft Marketing Plan Budget

Rationale:

The RegistryPro 2001 draft budget is designed to:

Create brand awareness among the consumer and professional

population of the target markets

Provide support necessary to meet strategic target marketing objectives of:

Obtaining professional registrations of 1,287,454
Developing relationships with professional associations

Set out below are the mediums that we intend to use and the relevant costs.

Marketing Mix Tool $ % of Total
Budget

Media

Trade Publications 2,735,840 16.2%

Consumer Publications 2,000,000 11.9%

Television 3,500,000 20.8%

10 markets

2 spots

Radio 1,500,000 8.9%

20 markets

4 spots

Direct Mail 1,425,000 8.5%

500M pieces per drop

Postage (4 drops)

Interactive 600,000 3.6%

Media Agency (Radio & TV) 500,000 3.0%

Media Total 12,260,840 72.7%

Production

Trade Advertisement 129,100 .8%

Full page, 4-color

3 types

Consumer publication 45,000 .3%

Television 250,000 1.5%

2 :30 spots

Radio 125,000 .7%

4 :30 spots

Direct Mail 95,000 .6%

4 direct mail drops, 500M pieces per drop

Photography, type, printing

Production Total 644,100 3.8%

Promotion

Conference Attendance 600,000 3.6%

(including speaking engagements)

2 per month over 12 months

Signage/tabletop/materials 650,000 3.9%

Design and production

Promotion Total 1,250,000 7.4%

Public Relations

4 campaigns 500,000 initial 3.0%

Launch campaign plus 250,000/ea 1.5%

one each 2Q, 3Q and 4Q

PR Total 1,250,000 11.5%

Research Costs

Market Research

Market wide (consumer usage) 1,000,000 11.5%

Conference (professional) 450,000 5.1%

Research Total 1,450,000 8.6%

Total Budget Estimate 16,854,940 100%

Trade Publications (Spreads):

Legal

Legal Publication 1 (US) 12x $209,400

Legal Publication 2 (US) 12x $182,760

Legal Publication 3 (US) 12x $209,160

Legal Publication 4 (UK) 40x $354,520

Total $955,840

Medical

Medical Journal 1 24x $402,000

Medical Journal 2 24x $543,000

Total $945,000

Accounting

Accounting Journal 1 12x $ 121,440

Accounting Journal 2 12x $ 68,400

Accounting Journal 3 12x $ 38,100

Accounting Journal 4 12x $ 28,800

Accounting Journal 5 TBD $ 78,260

Total $335,000

Japan Publications TBD $500,000

Total Trade Publications $2,735,800

RegistryPro

2001 WorldWide Marketing Calendar

Activity by Month

Comments

Trade Publications

Spreads

Prelaunch build with consistent exposure

Advertorial

Timed to focus around other registration and renewal activities

Consumer Publications

Build awareness among consumers

Television

Build awareness among consumers

Radio

Support television but with more reach and frequency

Direct Mail

Rolling emphasis

Interactive

Targeted Banners and Email for online acquisition

Conference Attendance

2/Mo. Vary professions

Public Relations

Launch plus 1/Q

Market Research

Consumer

Test message prelaunch and evaluate message

Market Research

Professional

Focus on spring/fall annual meetings/ conferences

D13.2.5. Estimated demand for registry services in the new TLD. Projected total demand for registry services in the TLD, effect of projected registration fees, competition. Please provide estimates for at least 10%, 50%, and 90% confidence levels.

As previously advised, the financial projections in our business plan are based on the 50% confidence level of estimated total demand. The market research we have undertaken has provided an indication of the most optimistic scenario, which we have taken to represent the 90% confidence level.

Based on our business plan, it is estimated that the initial demand for .pro TLDs during the first phase of operations (years 1 and 2) when the focus will be on the target market of lawyers, accountants and doctors in the US, UK and Japan (total population 6.75 million, estimated to increase by 5% per annum) will be 1.75 million or 25% of the target market. While these are the target markets for the initial marketing phase, .pro will be open to qualifying registrants around the world. Therefore, making a conservative assumption regarding the spillover during this first period into the total unduplicated worldwide professional market of 5% (total population of 22.5 million, also assumed to be increasing at 5% per annum), estimated sales in years 1 and 2 will be 3.0 million.

In years 3 and 4 it is estimated that penetration of our target market in the US, UK and Japan will increase to 31% (an incremental growth of 6%) and penetration of the total unduplicated worldwide professional market will increase to 25% (an incremental increase of 20%) resulting in sales for years 3 and 4 of approximately 5.4 registrations.

As a result, the 50% confidence level forecast suggests that total registrations for the first four years of operation of RegistryPro will be 8.4 million. This represents an overall conversion rate of the total worldwide market of professionals of 25%. It should be noted that the figure of 29.5 million professionals is a conservative estimate.

As mentioned above, market research has been undertaken on over 1000 consumers in the US and UK as well as concept evaluation issues conducted with key decision makers among professionals on issues including the usefulness, price and availability of other TLDs. This research has indicated that based on the most optimistic scenario (the 10% confidence level), RegistryPro could achieve registrations of 5.4 million in years 1 and 2 (a conversion rate of 45% of our target market and 10% of the worldwide market of professionals) and in years 3 and 4, 9.7 million representing an incremental increase in the conversion rate of our target market by 18% and an incremental increase in the worldwide market of 39%. As a result, total registrations under the most optimistic scenario would be 15.1 million. Based on these projections penetration rates would be around 50% of the worldwide market of professionals.

At the 90% confidence level, it is anticipated that registrations during the 4 year period will be 3,156,887. This is not a linear reduction from the 50% confidence scenario as market research indicates that the standard deviation level of demand would follow the distribution patterns of a normal population.

D13.2.6. Resources required to meet demand. Provide a detailed estimate of all resources (financial, technical, staff, physical plant, customer service, etc.) required to meet the estimated demands, using at least the 10%, 50%, and 90% confidence levels.

Financial

RegistryPro has attached Summary Financial Projections at Appendicies 3, 4 and 5. In order to establish the registry, the RegistryPro parent companies have agreed, subject to board approval, to provide or procure a maximum initial capitalization of $10 million, which is based on a business plan and annual budget. The funds will be sourced from a combination of shareholders’ existing cash resources ($32.5 million for Virtual Internet and $148,332,164 and $26,912,789 for Register.com) and third party funding, to the extent necessary. Any further funding needs would be similarly sourced. Baltimore Technologies has expressed an interest in an equity stake and this will be reviewed along with the other financing options.

Staff

Based on the 50% confidence level in the first year of operation, RegistryPro will require approximately 27 employees, as referenced in the organization chart in Section D13.1.7. For the first year of operations, it is expected that the key executive personnel would be in place shortly after acceptance of the registry bid. (Insert text here re: plans for physical plant lease, etc.) With key executive personnel, physical plant, and current resources of the co-sponsoring entities of Virtual Internet and Register.com, it is estimated that the full staffing build-out could be accomplished during the start up period.

Based on anticipated year 1 volume, we have incorporated redundancy to account for the possibility of 10% confidence level and beyond. It is our objective to run a lean organization. It is designed so that an unexpected increase in volume can be easily accommodated by either existing staff and systems or hiring new personnel in already-established functions at middle-management and junior levels. It is not expected that RegistryPro would need to hire any additional senior level management up to and beyond our 10% confidence levels of registrations per year. The purpose of this design is strategic, so that all incremental staffing needs will grow out of well-developed functions in the company. Staffing at the mid-level and support-levels of the company is easy met.

Physical Space

Ireland has been chosen as the RegistryPro headquarters because Ireland has:

§ a highly skilled workforce,

§ good communications and infrastructure,

§ favorable tax regime, and

§ is a convenient European location.

We believe that the space identified in our response to question D13.2.7 is appropriately scalable for a variety of confidence levels. A letter from DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, a real estate firm specializing in commercial space for technology companies, is included with this application as Attachment 8 The letter identifies DTZ Sherry FitzGerald's interest in locating appropriate space for RegistryPro and the availability of space that would suit the company's needs.

Customer Service and Billing

RegistryPro anticipates this function will be outsourced and we have attached an example of the type of services available as Attachment 5. It is expected that in year 2, RegistryPro will incrementally expand both customer service and billing resources, both of which are outsourced. The scalability will be built into the outsource agreements at inception.

Present resources that will be mobilized to accomplish the resourcing of RegistryPro include:

§ Combined over six years expertise in facilities build-out and management

§ Existing relationships and contracts with infrastructure providers, including hardware, finance and HR enterprise software solutions, co-location facilities, and contract development teams.

§ Existing proprietary software for customer service and local area network communication.

§ Other proprietary applications specific to domain name registration which are easily adaptable to registry-side of business

§ Internal expertise in the outsourcing and management of customer service operations in the United Kingdom.

§ Existing relationships with recruitment firms, spanning executive search, marketing and technology specialization in the United Kingdom

D13.2.7. Plans for acquiring necessary systems and facilities. Describe plans for acquiring all necessary systems and facilities for providing the proposed services at each estimated demand level. Provide details as to the scope, cost, and vendor for any significant planned outsourcing.

The current estimate needed for headquarters staff and technical staff is approximately 8,000 square feet. In addition each of RegistryPro's two main locations (needed to create redundant systems) will require 500 square feet for equipment. Seven satellite DNS locations will be co-located within the partners' (Register.com, Virtual Internet and Baltimore Technologies') existing facilities. Please see Attachment 8 for space leasing plans and information from DTZ Sherry Fitzgerald.

D13.2.8. Staff size/expansion capability. Plans for obtaining the necessary staff resources, capacity for expansion, hiring policy, employee training, space for additional staff, staffing levels needed for provision of expanded technical, support, escrow, and registry services.

The organizational structure of RegistryPro will be designed so that it may accommodate the growth needs of the business for the foreseeable future. The organizational chart (see section D9) has been designed with the assistance of an Organization Development specialist with 15 years of experience consulting with Fortune 500 as well as early stage companies. This organization is designed so that the company may grow at the support and managerial levels, without any changes to the structure and reporting relationships of the core management team.

Because of the nature of the registry business, we do not expect to undergo the type of exponential growth that has been required of Register.com and Virtual Internet. At the outset, RegistryPro could service the registration requirements of the approximately 60 “live” accredited registrars. Growth projections in the registrar community would not unduly strain RegistryPro’s resources. That being said, there will clearly be unforeseen staffing requirements as particular business directions become apparent.

Future staffing needs will be met through the mobilization of sourcing outlets including local print and Internet advertising, as well as utilization of an extensive international network of placement firms, venture capitalists, universities, and internal referral from the existing employee base. The physical space specifications in D13.2.7 would allow for staff scalability in the short term. Further physical space requirements would be met as described in D.13.2.6.

It will be critical to staff across all functions simultaneously, with key personnel in place at the outset. The structure of the company will be scalable so that it may grow to accommodate the demands of the registry business in the foreseeable future. The first priority will be the hiring of Senior Officers. Of paramount consideration is securing focused vision and operational leadership of the following personnel: Chief Executive Officer, a Technologist (CTO), Finance (CFO), Business Development executive, and a veteran marketer with experience marketing in a business-to-business environment. We have initiated searches for these key personnel and expect that with currently available resources, staffing of the respective functional units can be accomplished quickly. For the plans and resources to fill staffing needs, please refer to
Section D7.

Customer Service and Billing

RegistryPro’s plan is to achieve three goals: speed of time to market, build a 24/7 resource for customers, and firewall sensitive competitive data. The initial plan is to outsource these services, subject to further discussion with ICANN and budgetary considerations. (Even with outsourcing of these services, RegistryPro will have 24/7 technical support capacity, and any questions of a technical nature will be escalated to them.) The expansion capability would be handled via outsourcing. RegistryPro has developed and begun to execute a plan of action to secure a reliable customer service and billing source. At any point that additional resources are quickly required, RegistryPro will also be able to rely on this plan and the identified resources. Please see Attachment 5 for Request For Proposals sent by Register.com and an example of one of the responses redacted to protect information of a confidential or commercially sensitive nature.

Escrow

In order to ensure reliability in case of registry failure, RegistryPro will store data with an independent escrow agent. For details, please see D13.2.15.

D13.2.9. Availability of additional management personnel. How will management needs be filled?

Should additional management personnel be required to execute on the business plan of RegistryPro, we expect to utilize current networks to recruit talent from related technical industries. Such networks include executive search firm, robust internal referral policies which reward employees monetarily for successful referrals, boutique venture capitalist networks which attract specialized talent, and traditional online and print advertising. For additional details, please refer to D13.2.8.

D13.2.10. Term of registry agreement. State assumptions regarding the term of any registry agreement with ICANN or the sponsoring organization. Note that the .com/.net/.org registry agreement has a basic term of four years.

RegistryPro believes that an appropriate registry term is needed to achieve ICANN's goals of ensuring the domain name system's stability, instituting robust and scalable new registries, and encouraging competition. The term must be long enough to allow the registry to test and improve its systems, build awareness of the brand, and expand the registry’s primary services and secondary products to meet consumer demand. RegistryPro recognizes that there is a precedent in the .com/.net/.org registry agreement of a 4 + 4-year term. Since RegistryPro is proposing a more robust and real time registry and as its efforts to build consumer awareness and confidence will likely be more complex than those faced by the monopoly gTLD, the appropriate term for .pro may well need to be at least as long. RegistryPro is committed to working with ICANN to mutually determine the appropriate term to achieve at least the following goals:

§ maintain and test the registry system's security and operations;

§ make the necessary improvements to ensure the registry's effectiveness;

§ build a strong and competitive TLD brand;

§ build confidence in new TLDs generally, and among the .pro registrants specifically;

§ demonstrate an effective proof of concept concerning the introduction of new TLDs;

§ meet previously unmet types of needs; and

§ effectively build competition at the registry level.

D13.2.11. Expected costs associated with the operation of the proposed registry. Please break down the total estimated operational costs by the sources of the costs for each estimated demand level. Be sure to consider the TLDs share of ICANN's cost recovery needs.

Detailed below are the anticipated capital and operational costs for the first four years of RegistryPro operations as set out in RegistryPro’s business plan (based on the 50% confidence level).

§ Capital expenditure $ M

Registry database hardware 4.5

Network costs 0.4

DNS, Whois and RPP Servers 0.8

Oracle and Veribas Software 1.25

Office equipment (including

telephone system) 0.62

Finance/accounting system 0.1

Capitalized contractor cost 0.14

Total capital expenditure 7.81

$6.76 million of capital expenditure is budgeted to be spent within the first 6 months of the establishment of RegistryPro. The balance of $1.05 million relates to cost associated with an increase in the capacity of the database hardware, more servers and the upgrading of office computer equipment, which are anticipated to be incurred in year 3.

Forecast operating costs for RegistryPro’s operations for its first four years of operations:

§ Operating costs $000’s

Labor (including Advisory Board) 11,777

Rent and rates 907

Telecommunications 449

Sales and marketing 34,855

Professional fees 906 Insurance 155

Equipment and rental 259

Billing, customer service and

escrow agents 8,741

Internet/co-location costs 5,653

ICANN 1,077

Software license fees 1,034

Hardware maintenance 259

Research and development 517

Utilities 130

Depreciation and amortization 7,318

General expenses 1,550

Total operating cost 75,587

Notes:

No return on capital or long term funding has been included in the above calculations (25% per annum)

Bank interest and corporation tax have been excluded from operating costs.

The costs by month are included in the Business Plan Financial Projections Complete Model at Appendix 2.

Attached at Appendix 4 is the Summary Financial Projections for the most optimistic scenario (the 10% confidence level). The material changes to the cost base of the registry are:

§ An increase in capital expenditure of approximately $1.75m in year 3 to increase database storage and the hardware to support it.

§ An increase in the headcount to an average of 31 over the 4 year period and a corresponding increase in space requirements.

§ A doubling of the marketing spend and customer service/billing spend

§ A 50% per annum increase in Internet connectivity and co-location costs.

§ Appropriate increases in research and development, insurance, professional fees, general utilities, telecommunications and equipment hire and maintenance of between 10% - 30% per annum.

Attached at Appendix 5 is the Summary Financial Statements for our most conservative scenario (the 90% confidence level). These indicate that even if demand is lower than anticipated, the Registry should still be viable as a stand-alone entity and will become profit making in year 4. However in order for this to occur, appropriate cost reduction strategies will be required. The majority of these strategies would be implemented towards the end of year 1 and beginning of year 2 as a number of costs will be subject to annual contracts, cost reductions include:

§ Marketing costs from month 9.

§ Customer services and billing by approximately 50% from the commencement of year 2.

§ A reduction in headcount to an average of 20 staff over the 4 year period.

§ An appropriate decrease in research and development, insurance, professional fees, general expenses, utilities, Internet connectivity and co-location costs, telecommunications and equipment hire and maintenance of between 10-30% per annum.

D13.2.12. Expected revenue associated with the operation of the proposed registry. Please show how expected revenue is computed at each estimated demand level.

Revenue is calculated at each level of demand based on a sales price of $6 (plus VAT where applicable) per annum per registration. Registrations are anticipated to be for an average of two years and the sales income is deferred and released to the profit and loss evenly over the two year period. Further details of the revenue model are provided in D13.2.2.

Confidence Level	90%	50%	10%
Revenues	$31,156,887	$90,728,845	$163,312,629
Registrations New Renewals	3,156,887 751,229	8,392,285 2,253,086	15,106,230 4,055,565

D13.2.13. Capital requirements. Quantify capital requirements in amount and timing and describe how the capital will be obtained. Specify in detail all sources of capital and the cost of that capital (interest, etc.). Evidence of firm commitment of projected capital needs will substantially increase the credibility of the registry operator's proposal.

RegistryPro has attached Summary Financial Projections at Appendicies 3, 4 and 5. In order to establish the registry, the RegistryPro parent companies have agreed to provide a maximum initial capitalization of $10 million, subject to board approval which is based on a business plan and annual budget. The funds will be sourced from a combination of shareholders’ existing cash resources ($32.5 million for Virtual Internet and $148,332,164 and $26,912,789 for Register.com) and third party funding, to the extent necessary. Any further funding needs would be similarly sourced. Baltimore Technologies has expressed an interest in an equity stake and this will be reviewed along with the other financing options.

D13.2.14. Business risks and opportunities. Describe upside and downside contingencies you have considered and discuss your plans for addressing them.

There are vast opportunities for RegistryPro in what looks to be a burgeoning market, based on a strong foundation of continuing Internet growth.

The .pro registry will attract registrars because it will create a fertile market among professionals. The growth of the web is in direct proportion to the growth of the domain name industry. As the Internet’s growth is expected to stay strong and constant for years to come, the market for domain names should do the same.

As the web matures and becomes more user friendly, more people will find it to be a useful tool for their professions. Unfortunately, some of the strengths of the web are detriments for attracting professionals to conduct aspects of their business online. The anonymity afforded by the Internet that allows any individual to put up a site or maintain an email account is detrimental for professionals like doctors or lawyers to come onto the web. These individuals are qualified professionals, and their authority is based on the fact that their registration is linked to evidence of such qualification and can be proven. .pro will bring people onto the web who are not there now. Not only will it gain registrars, but the registrations they log in .pro will grow significantly.

RegistryPro will also attract registrars by providing a more robust real time service and making registration easier. RegistryPro is considering a template driven, uniform “placeholder” page that will pull information from Whois records located in the registry’s hardware. This page will sit on the registry’s servers and allow professionals to put up a page that houses information such as their name, address, certification, specialty, resume, and any other information that may be

seen as germane to their careers. This will serve as a placeholder for the customer’s domain name to point to in the time between registering a name and actually putting up a site.

While there are risks, RegistryPro has some level of control over the risks involved in the operation of the .pro registry:

§ The most central rests on a lack of consumer acceptance for .pro, resulting in poor demand and slow sales. Registrars will come if consumers are interested. RegistryPro plans on addressing this risk with an effective double pronged marketing strategy highlighting the benefits .pro will offer to both professionals and consumers. RegistryPro will also strive to mitigate the risk of registry technology failure. This will be addressed with advanced registry hardware and software, with special import given to safety features such as the system’s redundancy.

§ Another risk is a lack of the capital resources to establish and operate a robust competitive registry, particularly if demand exceeds current projections. The RegistryPro partners bring to bear significant resources, including ample cash reserves, to bear in this venture. They already have made a tremendous commitment of time and resources, and capital, and are prepared to create a competitive registry that will withstand the rigors of the business world and the potential for unanticipated demands.

§ A final risk is technical failure. Between the three of them, however, Register.com, Virtual Internet and Baltimore Technologies combine significant experience and expertise in systems and facilities management, innovative software and hardware design solutions, and secure and redundant facilities. The RegistryPro technical plan is designed to minimize risk of system failure and minimize, if not eliminate, system outages. RegistryPro went beyond that and is committed to depositing its data on a daily basis with an independent escrow service in order to guarantee an up-to-date database in case of registry failure.

D13.2.15. Registry failure provisions. Please describe in detail your plans for dealing with the possibility of registry failure.

In addition to the redundancy and security built into the registry, RegistryPro will use data escrow services to protect all data from any possible failures including business failures, system failures, natural disasters and sabotage. For further detail, please see section D.III.

RegistryPro shall deposit into escrow all registry data on a schedule to be agreed with ICANN (suggested weekly for a complete set of registry data and daily for incremental updates) and in an electronic format mutually approved by RegistryPro and ICANN. The escrow shall be maintained, at RegistryPro’s expense, by a reputable independent escrow agent. In preparation for the possibility of being awarded the bid, RegistryPro has initiated a process of seeking bids from escrow agents. Attached are examples of incoming bids, redacted to protect confidential and commercially sensitive information.

The use of the escrow data will be limited to verification that the deposited data is complete and in proper format to protect the privacy of the data. The data would be released to ICANN or the United States Department of Commerce upon termination of the registry agreement or in the event of an applicable court order or subpoena.

While RegistryPro will also encourage registrars to deposit into escrow their registrar data, their compliance is less necessary because the registry will have a centralized shared database.

D13.3. Pro‑forma financial projections. Please provide detailed pro‑forma financial projections, consistent with your business plan, for the demand scenarios that you estimate under item D13.2.5. The pro‑forms should show revenue and expense estimates broken down by detailed categories and should be broken down into periods no longer than quarterly.

We attach Summary Financial projections at Appendicies 3, 4 and 5 at the 10%, 50%, and 90% confidence levels. The Business Plan Financial Projections and Complete Model (at the 50% confidence level) is also attached at Appendix 2. The easiest route to review these documents may be by referring to the electronic copies included with this application.

D13.4. Supporting documentation. The following documentation should be provided in support of the Business Capabilities and Plan section:

D13.4.1. Registry operator's organizational documents. Documents of incorporation (or similar documents).

RegistryPro's organizational documents are included in this application as Attachment 9. Incorporation papers for Register.com, Virtual Internet, and Baltimore Technologies are also included within this attachment.

D13.4.2. References. A list of significant trade and credit references.

Register.com

Trade References:

Gateway Computer

610 Gateway Drive

North Sioux, SD 57049

USA

Carat

3 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10016

USA

Bank References

The Chase Manhattan Bank

1411 Broadway, 5^th Floor

New York, NY 10018

USA

Citibank, NA

Branch #51

181 Montague Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

Virtual Internet

Trade References:

Wise & Co Chartered Accountants

50 West Street

Farnham, Surrey GU9 7DX

Ernst & Young

Rolls House / Rolls Buildings

Letter Lane

London EC4A 1NH

Ashurst Morris Crisp

Broadwalk House

5 Appold Street

London EC2A 2HA

Internet Names WorldWide

A Division of Melbourne IT

Level 2

120 King Street

Melbourne, Victoria

Australia 3000

Bank Reference:

Barclays Bank PLC

Working Corporate Management Suite

P.O. Box 673

Town Gate House

Church Street East

Working, Surrey

U21 1XM

Credit References:

Farnell Electronic Components

Canal Road

Leeds

Accounts Department

West Yorkshire

LS12 2TU

Arrow Electronics

Unit 11

Vestry Estate

Sevenoaks

Kent

TN14 5EU

Insurance Reference:

Jequier Newitt Insurance Brokers

Suite 1c

Tannery Court, Stratton Way

Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 5TS

Baltimore Technologies

Insurance Reference:

James Hallam Limited

17 St. Helen’s Place

London EC3A 6DG

D13.4.3. Annual report. The registry operator's most recent annual financial report (or similar document). Audited financials are preferred.

Audited annual reports from 1999 and unaudited second quarter results ended June 30, 2000 for Register.com, Virtual Internet and Baltimore Technologies are attached to this application as Attachment 1.

D13.4.4. Proof of capital. Provide evidence of existing capital or firm commitments of capital. Demonstrated access to necessary capital will be carefully scrutinized.

RegistryPro’s financial projections are included as Appendix 3. In order to establish the registry, the RegistryPro parent companies have agreed, subject to board approval, to provide a maximum initial capitalization of $10 million, based on a business plan and annual budget. The funds will be sourced from a combination of shareholders’ existing cash resources ($32.5 million for Virtual Internet and $148,332,164 and $26,912,789 for Register.com) and third party funding, to the extent necessary. Any further funding needs would be similarly sourced. Baltimore Technologies has expressed an interest in an equity stake and this will be reviewed along with the other financing options.

D13.4.5. Proof of insurance. Please provide proof of the insurance described in item D13.1.8.

Documentation of RegistryPro's insurability can be found in this application as Attachment 6.

III. TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES AND PLAN

D14. The third section of the Registry Operator's Proposal is a description of the registry operator's Technical Capabilities and Plan. This section must include a comprehensive, professional‑quality technical plan that provides a detailed description of the registry operator's current technical capabilities as well as a full description of the operator's proposed technical solution for establishing and operating all aspects of the registry. The technical plan will require detailed, specific information regarding the technical capabilities of the proposed registry. The topics listed below are representative of the type of subjects that will be covered in the Technical Capabilities and Plan section of the Registry Operator's Proposal.

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

D15. The Technical Capabilities and Plan section should consist of at least the following:

D15.1. Detailed description of the registry operator's technical capabilities. This should provide a detailed description of the registry operator's technical capabilities, including information about key technical personnel (qualifications and experience), size of technical workforce, and access to systems development tools. It should also describe the registry operator's significant past achievements. This description offers the registry operator an opportunity to demonstrate the extent of its technical expertise in activities relevant to the operation of the proposed registry.

D15.2. Technical plan for the proposed registry operations. This should present a comprehensive technical plan for the proposed registry operations. In addition to providing basic information concerning the operator's proposed technical solution (with appropriate diagrams), this section offers the registry operator an opportunity to demonstrate that it has carefully analyzed the technical requirements of registry operation. Factors that should be addressed in the technical plan include:

RegistryPro will improve the reliability and effectiveness of domain name registration, based on the JV Partners’ experience as registrars and the technological capacity and the proprietary software and systems features that they and Baltimore Technologies contribute to the project. The effects will be to improve the usefulness of the DNS, increase public confidence, introduce competition, raise standards for all registries, and expand consumer choice. Ultimately, this will be an effective proof of concept for introduction of top-level domains in the future.

RegistryPro will provide a new improved registry standard. First, registrars’ services are currently hampered by monthly registry outages. RegistryPro will create a redundant infrastructure that is expected to eliminate outages. Second, RegistryPro will provide real time responsiveness to registrations and other changes to domain name status. Third, RegistryPro will operate a reliable and secure system and further insure that reliability with independent escrow services.

RegistryPro will also provide more transparency and protect intellectual property and privacy interests. For example, RegistryPro’s Whois Plus database will provide new added information, such as a trademark registration zone. Further it will offer enhanced searchability. At the same time, the Registry Who is provision of personal information will be subject to the instructions of each registrar in accordance with local privacy laws.

RegistryPro will be a truly global registry. With its head office in Dublin, Ireland, it will be able to depend on a geographically distributed set of facilities. It will be governed by policies drafted to accommodate worldwide laws and standards. It will provide customer support to all registrars at any time, no matter where the location.

D15.2.1. General description of proposed facilities and systems. Address all locations of systems. Provide diagrams of all of the systems operating at each location. Address the specific types of systems being used, their capacity, and their interoperability, general availability, and level of security. Describe in detail buildings, hardware, software systems, environmental equipment, Internet connectivity, etc.

In order to provide a highly reliable registry infrastructure, RegistryPro will operate core registry services in two locations. Core registry services include:

§ Database operations

§ Shared registry services

§ Master DNS services

§ Whois service

Under normal circumstances, the core registry functions will operate in a facility located near RegistryPro’s headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. For the purposes of this document, this location will be referred to as the “primary site”. RegistryPro will also duplicate the core registry functions at an alternate site in North America. In this document, this location will be referred to as the “alternate site” or the “secondary site”. In the event of a failure at the primary site, or other unforeseen circumstances, core registry functions will be transferred from the primary site to the alternate site. Only one site will host the core registry functions at any given point in time.

RegistryPro has entered into a strategic relationship with Baltimore Technologies and is currently considering using two of its Centres of Hosting Excellence (COE) as the facilities for the primary and the alternate sites. Specifically, the Dublin COE at Parkgate Street in Dublin, Ireland would be used as the primary site and the Needham COE at 77 A Street in Needham Heights, Massachusetts, USA would be used as the alternate site. Baltimore’s Dublin and Needham facilities have been used as models to create the descriptions of physical security, reliable infrastructure and technical excellence throughout this document. Although this document makes extensive references to the facilities as “Dublin” and “Needham”, it is possible that Baltimore and RegistryPro will decide to engage third party hosting facilities in the countries identified in the application for any reason. In this event, the third party hosting facility will have physical security and infrastructure equal to or greater than that of the Baltimore facilities described in this document.

In addition to core registry functions, RegistryPro will operate DNS services at a number of additional locations. These facilities include:

§ Register.com’s existing data center at 811 10^th Avenue, New York, NY, USA. This data center is co-located within an AT&T Enhanced Network Services facility.

§ Virtual Internet’s systems are located in three data centers at Fulham, Level (3) [primary], and Telehouse [secondary] and its network spans all three.

Register.com is also considering the use of Baltimore’s remaining Centres of Hosting Excellence in Sydney, Australia, and Saporro, Japan. Once again, Baltimore and RegistryPro may jointly decide to use third party facilities in Australia and Japan, but these facilities will be held to the stringent physical security requirements described in D15.2.9. In addition to the above-listed facilities, RegistryPro will use an RFP process to select at least three additional locations for DNS servers in facilities operated by outside parties. Sites will be selected in order to improve the overall geographic and network diversity for the .pro DNS service.

At its primary and secondary locations, RegistryPro will operate Oracle databases running on Sun Enterprise 4500 servers as described in Attachment 10 and D15.2.3. To provide storage for the database and other registry functions, RegistryPro will deploy storage arrays provide by EMC and Network Appliance. At the primary site, Brocade SilkWorm switches will be used to support a storage area network providing fiber-channel connectivity between database servers, storage arrays, and an ATL backup library. Front-end registry functions such as shared registry service, DNS, and Whois will run in a Linux environment on clusters VA Linux 1150 servers. Requests will be load balanced among the hosts in these clusters by Big-IP load balancers from F5 Networks. Additional network components include Cisco routers and switches and firewalls running Checkpoint’s Firewall-1 software. More detailed descriptions of the systems are available in D15.2.3, Attachments 10 and 11.

All components of this design have been chosen to ensure maximum reliability and security. System reliability, outage prevention and disaster recovery are more fully discussed in D15.2.11-13. RegistryPro intends to deliver a registry that is secure on every level, and a full discussion of security measures is made in D15.2.9. The combination of world-class facilities, industry-leading hardware and software, and carefully conceived design make RegistryPro extremely confident of the overall stability of the .pro registry’s systems. The uptime guarantees described in D15.2.11 are the best and most comprehensive in the industry, and RegistryPro intends to support them with real and measurable service level agreements (SLAs).

Finally, these systems have been engineered with scalability in mind and are capable of supporting the needs of the registrar community for years to come. All registry functions will be built out to support at least five million domain names, and the systems are designed to support at least one hundred thousand new registrations per day. Additionally, all hardware and software supports significant expansion and RegistryPro has the capability to deploy resources to support many times the peak capacities described in this document.

D15.2.2. Registry-registrar model and protocol. Please describe in detail.

Unlike the existing gTLD registry operated by Verisign Global Registry Services (VGRS), RegistryPro will gather comprehensive information for each .pro domain as part of a “thick registry” model. Specifically, .pro will gather the following information that is not included in the current gTLD registry:

§ Registrant information

§ Administrative and technical contact information

§ Qualifications to register a .pro domain name

§ Trademark information

The thick registry model conveys several advantages. First, a centralized source of public information such as Whois offers the Internet community a single resource with complete, standardized information about each domain name. Second, registrars are not burdened by the necessity to maintain potentially costly Whois infrastructure. Third, a thick registry offers the opportunity to significantly streamline inter-registrar functions, such as transferring domains between registrars. The registrar community is currently engaged in broad-ranging discussions regarding transfers and other issues, and RegistryPro believes that the eventual outcome of those discussions will be invaluable in devising clear practices for both registries and registrars. RegistryPro expects that it will be able to leverage its thick registry model to provide more efficient services to registrars as a result of these discussions, and awaits the formation of a consensus by all involved parties.

Part of the challenge of gathering and maintaining this information is creating a straightforward protocol for registrars to transfer the appropriate data to and from the shared registry. The existing registry-registrar protocol (RRP) created by VGRS and described in RFC 2832[1] accommodates only a limited set of information and is not easily extensible for larger data sets. A new registry-registrar protocol is clearly needed in order for a thick registry such as .pro to be useful.

It is possible for RegistryPro to simply define a new registry-registrar protocol and require registries to use this new mechanism for .pro registrations. However, the introduction of several new TLDs and their associated registries through ICANN’s “proof of concept” process creates a unique opportunity to generate a standard, generic and extensible registry-registrar protocol that could be used in any registry-registrar relationship. Scott Hollenbeck of VGRS has created an Internet Draft[2] outlining the requirements of such a protocol. RegistryPro strongly supports the creation of a standard, and intends to work as part of any collaborative process to create a generic registry-registrar protocol (gRRP). In the likely event that the specifications for a gRRP exist prior to the inception of the .pro registry, RegistryPro intends to use this protocol for registry-registrar interaction. In order to accommodate the use of a not-yet-existent protocol, many of the specifications in the remainder of this section have been left somewhat open-ended. RegistryPro expects that detail will be added through a standards-based process in the collaborative tradition of the Internet.

At this time, however, no gRRP exists and it would be irresponsible for RegistryPro to assume the creation of one prior to the inception of the .pro registry. In the event that no standard exists, RegistryPro will define a registry-registrar protocol based to whatever extent possible on standards discussions at the time, and with the following characteristics:

1. The registry server will provide a service allowing a session to be established.

2. The server and client will negotiate a specific version of the protocol to be used during the session.

3. The server will identify and authenticate clients before granting access to additional functions.

4. Each transaction that creates, updates or deletes any object will be associated with a unique transaction identifier, either generated by the server or provided by the registrar, at the discretion of the registrar.

5. The protocol will provide a mechanism to register domain names for one to two years. Upon successful registration, the server will return the authoritative expiration time and date for the registration to the server.

6. The protocol will provide a mechanism to register name servers. For name servers within the .pro TLD, at least one IP address must be associated with the name server. For name servers outside the .pro TLD, no IP address will be associated with the name server. Name server registration will not expire.

7. Name servers will not be required for the registration of a domain name, but may be associated with a domain name.

8. The protocol will provide a mechanism to register contact information.

9. Contact information will be required to be associated with a domain during the registration process for that domain.

10. The protocol will provide a mechanism to update domain, name server and contact information objects. Only the registrar which currently sponsors the object may modify it.

11. The protocol will provide a mechanism to transfer a domain object between registrars. In the event that a domain is transferred, name servers within that domain will be transferred simultaneously.

12. The protocol will provide a mechanism to extend the registration period of a domain name. No domain may be registered for a period ending more than two years from the date the extension is made.

13. The protocol will provide a mechanism to check for the existence of a domain, name server or contact information object.

14. The protocol will provide a mechanism to delete a domain, name server or contact information object. Only the registrar which currently sponsors the object may delete it.

15. The protocol will provide a mechanism to retrieve information about a domain, name server or contact information object.

This protocol will utilize a standard markup language such as XML to allow the use of multiple communication protocols at a variety of layers. Examples of protocols that can be used to transmit XML include TCP, SSL, HTTP and SMTP.

Regardless of whether the .pro shared registry system is based on a gRRP or a new protocol created by RegistryPro, the .pro registry-registrar services will support the following basic functions. Any protocol selected must implement all of the following capabilities:

Information Gathered

The registry will gather the following information for each domain as part of the registration process:

§ Domain name

§ Sponsoring registrar

§ Registrant name

§ Registrant organization (optional)

§ Registrant address (including street address, city, state/province if applicable, postal code and country)

§ Registrant phone number

§ Registrant facsimile number (optional)

§ Registrant e-mail address

§ Qualification of restricted registrant (required)

§ Trademark information (required only during sunrise period)

§ Digital signature (see below)

Additionally, each domain name may be associated with one or more name servers. For each name server, the following information is gathered:

§ Nameserver name

§ IP addresses (see below)

§ Digital signature (see below)

For name servers within the .pro domain, one or more IP addresses will be required. For name servers not within the .pro domain, no IP addresses will be allowed.

Finally, each domain name must be associated with both a technical and administrative contact. Both the technical and administrative contacts may be the same. For each contact, the following information is gathered:

§ Name (both individual name or organization name will be available; one or both must be provided)

§ Address (including street address, city, state/province if applicable, postal code and country)

§ Telephone number

§ Facsimile number (optional)

§ E-mail address

§ Digital signature (see below)

Security

Several security checks will be applied in the early phases of each connection. Interactive sessions will be conducted over SSL-secured network communications. This prevents malicious third parties from intercepting communications between registrars and the registry. Additionally, access to registry functions will be controlled by three mechanisms:

Username and password – Each registrar will be assigned a username and a password that they will keep secure. The passwords will be stored in encrypted form, so that even the registry will not have access to all of the registrars’ passwords. The password for each username will be changed on a periodic basis.

Client side SSL certificates – Each registrar will use a certificate with their registrar user name as the common name field. The registry server will only accept certificates that are digitally signed by the registry. (This differs from VGRS’s practice of requiring that certificates be signed by a third party. This eliminates some expense for registrars, and allows the registry to rely on the trusted relationship that it establishes with registrars as opposed to the generic verification policies utilized by third parties.) At the time of signing, the registry will be able to validate that the person requesting the certificate does in fact represent the registrar who has been assigned that particular username. The registry server will only accept connections from a client when the username they log in as matches the common name in the certificate.

IP Address Filtering – The registry server will only permit logins from an restricted list of IP addresses. Each registrar will have a list of IP addresses associated with it. Although the IP addressees of all registrars will be able to access the registry’s network, a registrar will be prohibited from communicating with the shared registry system unless the connection originates from an IP address in the range assigned to that registrar. In order to allow its clients to take advantage of redundant configuration or other special needs, the registry will permit multiple IP ranges per registrar.

Unlike the gTLD registry currently operated by VGRS, which considers each of the security factors above independently, the proposed registry will only allow access to a registrar if all of the authentication factors match the specific registrar. In other words, a registrar must connect using its particular username/password combination and its SSL certificate from its IP address.

These mechanisms will also be used to secure any web-based tools that will allow registrars to access the registry. Additionally, all transactions in the registry (whether conducted by registrars or the registry’s own personnel) will be logged to ensure accountability and an appropriate audit trail.

In addition to these mechanisms, which authenticate and secure each connection, the registry will also require that each domain, name server, and contact information object within the database include digital signature provided by the sponsoring registrar. The private key used to provide these signatures will not be the same as the one used to establish the SSL session. This digital signature must match the current contents of the object which it validates; if a registrar attempts to update or create an object and the signature does not match the data in the object, the server will reject the request with an appropriate error message. Requests to delete objects must be accompanied by digital signatures validating the requests or be similarly rejected. Likewise, the server will digitally sign all confirmations of requests to add, change or delete objects through the shared registry system. These digital signatures provide two important advantages over simply relying on SSL to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the session. First, both the registry and the registrar will be able to use the signatures as part of audit trails to ensure non-repudiation. Secondly, the signatures ensure the validity of all data within the registry. Even if an attacker were able to gain write access to the registry’s systems, any attempt to modify the data within the registry would be apparent due to the mismatch between the digital signature and the object data.

Multilingual Support

For the past several months, the IETF’s Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) working group has been attempting to create standards to enable support for domain names that incorporate non-ASCII characters. This process has already resulted in the creation of an Internet draft describing the requirements for internationalized domain names[3], as well as several proposals to accommodate multilingual names within applications, resolvers, and authoritative DNS servers. Although the results of the working group will almost certainly impact the operation of any registry, there are still a number of different technical options under consideration and the implementation of each varies significantly. RegistryPro intends to track the progress of the IDN working group carefully and to ensure that the .pro registry supports multilingual domain names in a manner consistent with the conclusions of the working group.

Although the .pro registry will not support the registrations of multilingual domain names until IETF’s standards process has evolved, the registry-registrar protocol will use UTF-8[4] character encoding scheme for all transmission of data between the registry and registrars. UTF-8 is an encoding scheme used to transmit information in the Universal Character Set (UCS)[5], which is intended to represent characters from all languages. UTF-8 has the characteristic of preserving the full US-ASCII range, so that non-multilingual characters are readable by software that relies on ASCII character values. The use of UTF-8 in the registry-registrar protocol allows RegistryPro to easily add support for multilingual domain names as the standards process evolves.

D15.2.3. Database capabilities. Database size, throughput, scalability, procedures for object creation, editing, and deletion, change notifications, registrar transfer procedures, grace period implementation, reporting capabilities, etc.

RegistryPro will build a database infrastructure based on Oracle 8/8i running on Sun Enterprise 4500 servers. (See Attachments 10 and 12 for complete hardware and software specifications.) The specific version of the Oracle database software will be selected by RegistryPro based on current software availability from Oracle, but version 8.1.6 is currently considered to be a likely candidate. Key features of Oracle include:

§ High-end data warehousing capabilities

§ Sophisticated query optimization

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

§ Very large database support

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

§ Scalable parallel architecture for SMP and MPP platforms

§ Unlimited database size

§ Architecture supports thousands of simultaneous requests

§ Online backups allows backups to be made without interrupting transaction processing

§ Extended backup/recovery subsystem

§ XML parsers

§ User authentication and security

§ Various indexing schemes: B-tree indexes, clustered tables, hash clusters and bitmapped indexes

§ Parallel index creation and support for automatic index maintenance

§ Sophisticated SQL optimizer

§ Advanced resource management

§ Full multilingual support, including Unicode UTF-2

§ Database event triggers

§ Logging and archiving

The database will initially be allocated approximately 500 gigabytes (GB) of storage, with approximately 500 GB additional storage available. This environment should support at least 5 million .pro domain names, which is somewhat greater than RegistryPro’s five-year projected registrations. Additional storage is easily added to this environment—not only does the hardware support the addition of significant additional space, but Oracle accommodates multiple storage.

RegistryPro’s databases should easily provide adequate transaction processing for the .pro registries. Using Oracle Performance Monitor, similar database configurations on Sun E-4000 hardware have been observed to support up to 2,000 transactions per second. This substantially exceeds the projected maximums required to support the .pro registry. In the event that additional processing is required, the initial Sun E-4500 configuration can be significantly upgraded through the addition of CPUs and memory. Finally, due to the continuous operation of multiple database servers, the addition of more powerful servers, such as Sun Enterprise 6500 or Sun Enterprise 10000, is easily accomplished.

RegistryPro will operate a total of five Sun E-4500 database servers in two locations: three at RegistryPro’s primary location in Dublin and two at RegistryPro’s secondary location in Needham. At the primary site, the databases will operate in three modes: active, backup, and standby. At the secondary location, the databases will operate in two modes: active and backup. Of the five total databases, only one will be in active state at any time. The site hosting the active database is the “active site”; the other site is the “backup site”. All database servers at the backup site run in backup mode.

A brief description of each of the database modes follows:

Active: The active database server supports the active database instance and is the authoritative source of information for all .pro systems.

Backup: The backup database server is attached to the same storage as the active database, but does not have an active database instance. In the event of a failure of the active database, a database instance begins on the backup server, the server takes over all database functions, and becomes the active database server.

Standby: The standby database server is attached to an alternate storage array and runs a database instance in recovery mode. Every five minutes, redo logs are copied from the active database server to the standby system, and are incorporated into the standby database. In the event of a failure by both the active and backup database servers, or the storage array used by the active and backup servers, the standby server will take over all database functions, and become the active database server.

Data is replicated between the active and backup sites using Veritas Volume Replicator (see Attachment 12). Veritas Global Cluster Manager continuously monitors the database at the active site, and in the event of a failure at the active site, a database server at the backup site is selected as the new active database. A database instance will be activated on the chosen database server, and the new active server will take over all database functions. All registry-registrar services and master DNS services will also be moved to servers at the new active site. When service is restored at the primary site, Global Cluster Manager can control a manual transition back to the primary facility.

Extensive procedures will guide all database operations, including schema changes, database changes, database failover, database backup, and disaster recovery. Initial examples of RegistryPro’s database policies are included in Attachment 13.

Although this database infrastructure allows for an extensive data warehouse with impressive reporting capabilities, RegistryPro is not currently planning to build a full data warehouse as part of the initial .pro registry implementation. Given the anticipated size of the .pro registry database, the expected cost of a fully developed data warehouse is in the millions of dollars, and some additional revenue sources must be identified to offset these costs. Reporting features that are required to provide ongoing customer support and billing functions will be provided from the inception of the registry.

D15.2.4 Zone file generation. Procedures for changes, editing by registrars, updates. Address frequency, security, process, interface, user authentication, logging, data back-up.

The current mechanism of zone file generation, distribution and publication used in the existing gTLDs reveals some of the flaws of relying upon BIND for all central nameserver functions. Not only does this system create significant delays in the propagation of changes, but the potential exists for individual large-scale errors (such as blank, truncated or corrupted zonefiles) to affect the operation of an entire TLD. An ideal top-level domain name system would allow for real-time updates to information, respond to all incoming requests quickly, and perform these functions reliably and with no downtime. Relying on BIND as a platform for DNS service makes meeting all or most of these criteria nearly impossible.

RegistryPro will deploy a world-class DNS infrastructure to support its .pro registry operations. In order to overcome the limitations of BIND, RegistryPro will use a proprietary DNS server application. This application is described in more detail in Attachment 10. The important features of this technology include:

§ Near real-time propagation of updated domain information

§ Fault-tolerant clustering of DNS servers

§ No fixed limit to the number of zones supported by a single cluster

The design of this DNS infrastructure allows per-domains updates from the registry database into an adjacent cluster of DNS servers in near real time. This “master” cluster then uses a secure network protocol to distribute the updates throughout all other clusters of DNS servers. In this manner, changes can be propagated from the database to all DNS servers in under five minutes. This per-domain update mechanism eliminates the need for traditional zone file generation altogether. Once a registrar makes a successful change to a domain involving DNS-related information (and the change is validated using the appropriate digital signature—see the description of the registry/registrar process in D15.2.2), the database will insert an update message into a queue for the adjacent cluster of DNS servers. This message will be processed by the DNS application and propagated throughout all remaining clusters of name servers. All updates will be logged by both the database and the DNS application; these logs will periodically be cross-checked to verify consistency. These logs will also be backed up on a twice-daily basis (see D15.2.7) and can be used to restore the DNS system to its state at a previous moment in time, and provide an audit trail.

In order to ensure the stability of its DNS infrastructure, RegistryPro will also deploy several backup DNS servers running BIND. Although these systems will not generally be used to answer DNS queries, in the event of a catastrophic failure of the principal .pro DNS infrastructure, RegistryPro will use the BIND-based DNS servers in a failover mode. Traditional zone file generation will be required to keep these servers up to date, and this zone file generation will occur on a once daily basis. Once the stability of RegistryPro’s improved infrastructure has been established, these backup servers may be phased out.

D15.2.5 Zone file distribution and publication. Location of nameservers, procedures for and means of distributing zone files to them.

As described in D15.2.4 and Attachment 14, RegistryPro will utilize a DNS infrastructure that does not rely on zone files as used in BIND and other traditional DNS server software. In order to provide end-users with a reliable and responsive DNS infrastructure, RegistryPro will deploy DNS servers in a number of locations, including those referenced in D15.2.1:

§ Dublin

§ Needham

§ New York, NY

§ London

§ Sydney

§ Saporro

Additionally, RegistryPro will use an RFP process to select at least three additional locations for DNS servers operated by outside parties. Sites would be selected in order to improve the overall geographic and network diversity for the .pro DNS service.

At any given time, the DNS cluster at either the primary site in Dublin or the backup site in Needham will act as the “master” cluster. (The master cluster is the one adjacent to the active database and shared registry service, so if the Dublin site is providing the active shared registry service, the DNS cluster in Dublin will be the master.)

The following five paragraphs are confidential. See Section F: Statement of Requested Confidential Treatment of Materials Submitted.

The master will be responsible for keeping distributed logs, issuing warnings to operators, initializing new servers in the other clusters, and zone data propagation. In the event of catastrophic master failure, the satellite clusters will still continue to operate. It will be possible to retrieve configuration information from them once the master is rebuilt.

The master will also distribute updated zone information to the satellite clusters. All communications between the master and satellite clusters will be encrypted for security. Updates received by an individual node within a satellite cluster will be distributed to the rest of the servers within that cluster. As indicated in D15.2.4, RegistryPro will tune communications parameters so that changes generally propagate to all clusters within five minutes.

This system uses advanced DNS software developed at Register.com. The goals of this system are faster response times, rapid zone information updates, and improved fault tolerance. To achieve these goals as part of a mission critical system such as DNS, Register.com has used the same open source libraries used for industrial process control, medical imaging and avionics. This proven software is being actively developed by industry-academia partnerships, and should provide a growing, stable development base for many years to come. Register.com has also leveraged its considerable experience in managing large scale DNS infrastructure in the development of this software. Register.com provides authoritative DNS services for over two million domain names and has specifically designed this software to create a highly scalable and available DNS infrastructure.

As indicated in D15.2.4, this entire DNS infrastructure will be backed up by a parallel system of DNS servers running BIND. Once a day, zone files will be generated (from the same location as the master DNS cluster) and distributed to all BIND servers via a secure, authenticated network layer protocol such as SSL. After performing integrity checks on the received data, BIND will reload on these remote systems in a staggered manner so that no fewer than half are active and ready to respond to queries at any given moment.

D15.2.6. Billing and collection systems. Technical characteristics, system security, accessibility.

Each registrar provides a letter of credit from which the registry can draw in the event of non-payment of domain registrations.

The registry monitors the volume of registrations daily. If the monetary value of registered names exceeds 80% of the letter of credit, the registry is contacted. The registrar can increase the letter of credit or make a pre-payment to maintain an acceptable credit balance. Once the credit limit has been reached, the registry shuts off their ability to register further names. This prevents the registry from having to delete names for which the registrar has not paid.

At the end of the billing period, the registry compiles registration data for each registrar. An invoice is created and the data is made available either by sending paper or electronic documents, or by posting the data on a secure FTP site.

Ideally, the registrar pays the invoice in full upon receipt. The registry updates their account and sends a confirmation of the registrar's credit balance.

In some cases, registrars may make partial payments pending minor disputed amounts relating to a small number of names. In these situations, the registry works with the registrar to answer questions and have outstanding invoice amounts paid.

If a registrar does not pay, the registry shuts off their ability to register names. The letter of credit can be drawn on to pay outstanding amounts and in extreme cases, the registry may delete the names in question if no payment can be obtained.

Figure 1: Registry Billing Cycle Flowchart

D15.2.7 Data escrow and backup. Frequency and procedures for backup of data. Describe hardware and systems used, data format, identity of escrow agents, procedures for retrieval of data/rebuild of database, etc.

The .pro registry will be protected by a variety of data backup and escrow mechanisms, ranging from the real-time replication of critical data to a comprehensive traditional tape backup scheme, and also including full third party data escrow.

RegistryPro will replicate most important data in real time. Using Veritas Global Cluster Manager, the Oracle database file systems will be replicated from the active site (see the definition in D15.2.3) to the backup site. Application data will be copied to both the active and backup sites before moving from development to production systems. This duplication of data allows for failover procedures provide a mechanism to resume the operation of the registry at the alternate site in the event of a failure at the active site.

At the primary site in Dublin, a secondary storage array will also back up the active database. As described in D15.2.3, redo logs will be copied from the active database server to the separate storage array used by the standby database server. These logs are used to bring the standby database instance up-to-date at five minute intervals. In the event of a failure of the active storage array, the standby database server can become active and resume all database functions.

Two additional mechanisms will be employed to back up database information to tape, using ATL P3000 tape libraries as described in Attachment 10. First, logical backups will be made of the complete database twice per day. Secondly, complete physical backups of all .pro database information will be performed on a daily basis at the primary site; at the secondary site in Needham, complete physical backups will be performed on a weekly basis complimented by incremental backups on a daily basis.

Application and log data will be stored to tape on a similar schedule to physical data backups for the database. This information will be completely backed up to tape on a daily basis at the primary site. At the secondary site, complete weekly backups will be complimented by daily incremental backups.

RegistryPro will use Veritas Net Backup software to facilitate the restoration of data in accordance with disaster recovery procedures. Sets of tapes will be rotated to secure off-site locations on a regular basis.

Escrow Services

D15.2.8 Publicly accessible look up/Whois service. Address software and hardware, connection speed, search capabilities, coordination with other Whois systems, etc.

RegistryPro will make available traditional Whois services at its primary and backup facilities in Dublin and Needham, with access to the Internet connectivity and infrastructure built to support all of the .pro registry functions. The Whois server will run in load-balanced clusters utilizing Intel x86-based hardware (described in Attachment 10). This service will utilize a custom Whois server application based on the Whois application developed by Register.com. Register.com currently uses this application to provide Whois service for over two million domain names and answers approximately 500,000 queries each day. Updates will be propagated from the database to the Whois service in near real time when domains are registered or modified.

The publicly available .pro Whois service will respond to requests for a single domain name and will generally provide back the following information:

§ Domain name

§ Registrar information

§ Nameservers (if any)

§ Registrant information

§ Admin/tech/billing contact information

§ Date of registration, date of last modification, date of expiration

§ Qualification of restricted registrant

§ Trademark information (if any)

Due to the centralized nature of the .pro registry’s information storage, this data can be presented in a standard format for domains registered by any registrar. However, in order to accommodate local privacy laws, the registry will provide a mechanism for certain data from individual domains, or possibly across entire registars, to be “masked” and made unavailable to the public. The specific fields that can be masked will be determined by RegistryPro in collaboration with ICANN based on current ICANN policy.

To prevent the abuse of the Whois database, the IP addresses of incoming requests will be logged. In the event that an excessive number of requests from a specific IP or network are made, the Whois servers will temporarily block additional requests from the same IP address or range.

In addition to the publicly available Whois information, the .pro registry will provide bulk access to a limited subset of this information to individuals or organizations who agree to specific terms of use. This bulk access is similar to that offered by Verisign Global Registry Services under its TLD Zone File Access Program. Bulk access at the registry level will include only the following information:

§ Domain name

§ Associated registrar

§ Associated nameservers (if any)

Bulk access to additional information can be provided from individual registrars, as per ICANN policies and in accordance with applicable law.

Finally, the .pro registry will be built using a database infrastructure capable of extensive data warehousing. This capability allows the registry to provide extensive search capabilities on fields other than domain name. However, due to the significant costs of building a complete data warehouse solution, this type of service will not be provided initially. After a complete consideration of privacy concerns, intellectual property interests, and cost considerations, RegistryPro may offer a more comprehensive search and reporting capability as a paid subscription service to interested parties. At the inception of the .pro registry, RegistryPro will offer the capability to perform searches on the domain name only. Although the public Whois database will allow queries to be performed only on individual domain names, RegistryPro may offer more robust domain name searching capability to users on a subscription basis.

D15.2.9. System security. Technical and physical capabilities and procedures to prevent system hacks, break-ins, data tampering, and other disruptions to operations. Physical security.

Due to the critical nature of the .pro registry’s data, RegistryPro will conduct all of its operations with significant attention to security. Through a strategic relationship with Baltimore Technologies, one of the largest providers of e-security products and services, RegistryPro will provide the .pro registry with world-class security at every level. For a description of Baltimore Technologies’ hosting facilities see Attachment 15.

Physical Security

All .pro database and shared registry services will be operated out of Baltimore Technology’s secure hosting facilities in Dublin and Needham. These facilities are extremely secure, and are used to host digital security services for clients such as American Express, Mastercard, and Deutsche Telecom, along with trust root keys that are used by nearly all web browsers on the Internet. The following physical protections are used throughout the facilities: use of 24/7 guard service, alarm systems, several layers of physical barriers, combination locks, restricted key sets and the separation of infrastructure elements. Both facilities have been extensively reviewed and audited by third parties. As an example of this process, the Needham facility has completed several reviews including:

§ SAS 70 Level 1 and 2 Accreditation

§ SET Accreditation

§ Independent review by American Express, Mastercard and VISA

In the most secure portions of the facility, where .pro registry functions will be hosted, access to individual rooms is available only under a strict two person rule. In these rooms, at least two people must work in the room simultaneously. This strategy prevents even individual employees with full access to the facilities from compromising the integrity of registry data.

Network Security

RegistryPro will employ a number of measures to prevent unauthorized access to its network and internal systems. Before reaching the registry’s network, all traffic will pass through a firewall system. Packets passing to or from the Internet will be inspected, and unauthorized or unexpected attempts to connect to the registry’s servers will be denied and logged. The registry’s routers will also act as the first line of defense against any denial of service attacks, with the ability to instantly deny traffic from a specific host, network, or even an entire Internet Service Provider.

Front-end registry servers (such as the shared registry service, Whois and name servers) will sit behind a second layer of network security provided by load balancing equipment. The hosts will use RFC 1918 reserved address space that is not routable on the public Internet. Packets destined for specific services such as DNS or the registry’s SSL-protected applications will be translated only after being subjected to additional security checks; suspicious traffic is dropped before being translated and will not reach the servers. Additionally, front-end systems will be arranged into load balanced clusters; even if an attack is successful on an individual host, subsequent requests by the attacker will reach other servers, making it extremely difficult to take advantage of any weakness. Critical internal systems, such as database and file servers, will also have non-routable IP addresses, and absolutely no traffic is to be permitted to reach them from the public Internet.

Servers that cannot be secured on RFC 1918 addresses will sit in a demilitarized zone (DMZ) separate from the main registry network. Traffic passing from the Internet or the DMZ to the secure internal network must pass through a firewall enforcing a strict security policy.

RegistryPro will install a network-based intrusion detection system (IDS) at both the primary and secondary site. The IDS will monitor the network for suspicious activity. If possible malicious activity is detected, appropriate personnel will be notified immediately.

Server Security

RegistryPro will employ a set of security precautions to ensure maximum security on each of its servers. Although specific procedures will vary based on operating system, specific function of the host, and other factors, minimum standards on each server include:

§ Disabling all unnecessary services and processes

§ Regular application of security-related patches to the operating system or critical system applications

§ Installation of tools such as SYN cookies to prevent denial of service attacks

§ Use of tripwire and log file analysis to ensure the ongoing integrity of each system

§ Accounts on all production systems will only be assigned to a limited set of administrative personnel. Developers, customer service employees, and others will not have login accounts on these servers.

Application Security

The security mechanisms used to protect registry-registrar functions have been previously discussed in D15.2.9. These measures are intended to prevent unauthorized access, and the introduction of unique digital signatures for each database object makes it extremely difficult for an attacker to tamper with the registry’s data.

In order to guarantee the integrity of DNS data, RegistryPro will use DNSSEC[6] to provide digital signatures for all domain name information provided by the .pro DNS infrastructure. In order to encourage the widespread use of DNS security extensions, RegistryPro will work with the registrar community, registrants and leverage its strategic relationship with Baltimore Technologies to facilitate the creation of a trusted key hierarchy.

D15.2.10. Peak capacities. Technical capability for handling a larger-than-projected demand for registration or load. Effects on load on servers, databases, back-up systems, support systems, escrow systems, maintenance, personnel.

RegistryPro estimates that registration volume and demand on the shared registry system will be significantly higher during the initial “landrush” period of the .pro registry’s operations than in subsequent months. Although the limited scope of the TLD and the requirements for registrants to demonstrate qualifications to register domain names mean that this “landrush” period will not be nearly as pronounced as in a gTLD, RegistryPro has taken several steps to ensure that its systems will not be overwhelmed by initial demand.

First, the .pro registry’s systems have been engineered to handle significant spikes in registration volume and should accommodate the registration or modification of close to one hundred thousand domain names per day, well in excess of projected registrations. Even in a scenario in which failure of various components occurs at the same time as increased registration volume, the systems should process expected peak registrations.

Second, RegistryPro can re-deploy hardware on an emergency basis to accommodate larger-than-expected demands on the system during the initial months of operations. If database resources are under strain, processors and memory can be moved from the standby Sun E-4500 to the active database server. This configuration leaves the primary site with only an active and backup database servers, but given the other layers of system redundancy described in D15.2.3 and D15.2.11, this is an acceptable contingency for a short period of time. In the event that the shared registry front-end systems become a bottleneck, servers from Whois and name server clusters can be moved to the shared registry cluster, as these other services will be under relatively less load during the initial months of the .pro registry’s operation.

It is also worthwhile to note that RegistryPro plans to use extremely common Intel x86-based servers in all of its front-end systems. This hardware is nearly ubiquitous within the market and it would be extremely straightforward to obtain additional servers if needed. The use of layer 4 load balancing techniques as described in D15.2.11 makes it simple to rapidly move additional servers into a cluster. Although the Sun Enterprise hardware used for database servers is not as common, it is widely available and additional hardware could be readily obtained if necessary. The initial database server configurations allow for significant additions of CPUs and memory within the E-4500 systems that RegistryPro will deploy.

During the initial landrush and sunrise periods described in Sections E5 and E11-E15, RegistryPro will run its shared registry service in a batch mode in which orders are not processed immediately, but are stored within a queue to be processed at a later time. Periods of time will be designated in which registrars can submit requests into the queue; subsequently, the requests will be evaluated in a manner which does not unfairly benefit any registrar or registrant, and the results will be returned to the registrar through an out-of-band communications mechanism. These strategies will allow RegistryPro to closely regulate the load on the database and application servers during the periods during which the highest registration volumes are expected.

Other parts of the system, such as backups, support and escrow systems are taxed by a large number of total domains registered, and not by high day-to-day or hour-to-hour volumes. Short terms surges in registration volume should not affect these systems. If long term registration projections are substantially low, these components can be upgraded well in advance of their limits being reached. Storage and backup systems have been designed to accommodate approximately five million active domain names before upgrades become necessary. Both Whois and name servers use a clustered approach which allows the easy addition of inexpensive new hardware as the capacities of the system are reached. Once again, systems have been engineered to accommodate expected volumes for over five million active domain names, with the Whois servers capable of handling approximately two million queries per day and the name service infrastructure capable of handling 10,000 queries per second.

Finally, since customer service and billing functions will be outsourced, higher than expected registration volumes should not be a problem for these services. See Attachment 5 for the RFP which provides for an outsource company to be able to easily accommodate additional demand by .pro registrations.

D15.2.11. System reliability. Define, analyze, and quantify quality of service.

Domain name registries provide some of the most essential functions of the modern Internet. At the same time, the Internet is increasingly relied upon to perform critical functions for companies, organizations, and individuals throughout the world. These realities dictate that the reliability of a new registry’s functions must approach 100% despite the constant need for upgrades to both hardware and software. RegistryPro has taken these demands into consideration and designed systems with reliability that is unparalleled on the Internet today.

The first step in any discussion of system reliability must involve some attempt to define what it means to be “up” versus “down”. This is essential because a service can be running, but with performance so degraded as to be useful. In order for registry services to be useful to the Internet community, they must not only be available, but responsive. RegistryPro considers issues relating to performance to be an essential part of the definition of service reliability, and has used this as a basis to create the following quality of service definitions:

Service description	Quality of service definition
Shared registry service (RRP)	The shared registry service shall be considered to be up during any minute long interval in which 99% of transactions are successfully completed within one second.
Whois	The Whois service shall be considered to be up during any minute long interval in which 99% of all requests return correct data within one second.
DNS (cluster)	An individual DNS cluster shall be considered to be up during any minute long interval in which 99.9% of all requests to the cluster return a correct response within 500 milliseconds.
DNS (service)	The DNS service shall be considered to be up during any interval in which at least half of the total clusters are considered to be up.

The quality of service definitions above assume that the measurement is being made from the same network as the measured service. In order to measure the responsiveness of .pro registry services from various portions of the Internet, RegistryPro will contract with a service measurement company such as Keynote[7] or Service Metrics[8] to provide data regarding the performance of core .pro registry functions.

RegistryPro will provide DNS service that end-users throughout the Internet rely on extensively and without which routine Internet functions relating to .pro domains will not be possible. RegistryPro will devote significant resources to ensure that its DNS service is extremely reliable (see D15.2.4, D15.2.5 and Attachment 14). By employing redundancy at every level of its design, including the deployment of a parallel DNS infrastructure running BIND, RegistryPro expects to be able to guarantee that its DNS service shall be up 99.999% of any year-long interval and 99.995% of any month-long interval. The uptime of any individual DNS cluster will be guaranteed to be at least 99.95% during any month-long interval.

The .pro Whois and shared registry services are other important public resources and RegistryPro will engineer its systems to provide significant redundancy and ensure high availability. The advanced design of these systems allow RegistryPro to guarantee a 99.99% uptime for both Whois and shared registry services.

In order to perform periodic maintenance, RegistryPro will also schedule maintenance windows for two hours each week. Although this weekly maintenance window will exist, RegistryPro recognizes that any downtime can be extremely disruptive to both registrars and end-users, so maintenance windows will only be used under the following circumstances:

§ Registrars will be notified at least 72 hours prior to the maintenance window

§ No more than 10 maintenance windows will be used during any year

Shared registry service or Whois downtime during maintenance windows will not be considered in evaluating the uptime guarantees described earlier in this section. Due to its critical nature, here will be no scheduled downtime windows for DNS service.

D15.2.12. System outage prevention. Procedures for problem detection, redundancy of all systems, back up power supply, facility security, technical security, availability of back up software, operating system, and hardware, system monitoring, technical maintenance staff, server locations.

Every major component of the .pro registry has been designed with significant redundancy to make a major system outage extremely unlikely.

For critical .pro registry subsystems, such as the database and storage, RegistryPro will use highly available hardware from Sun, EMC and NetApp. These components are widely deployed for mission-critical applications in a variety of sectors including the Internet, financial, medical and government. The Sun E-4500 database servers feature fully redundant internal power and cooling, the ability to repair or reconfigure components while the system remains online, CPU power control and hardware failure prediction. EMC and NetApp storage arrays also employ redundant power and cooling combined with hot-swappable drives, RAID 0+1 or RAID 4 protection of all data, online standby drives, battery-backed NVRAM to guarantee write completion, and proactive monitoring of the environment and internal systems to identify potential problems before they cause downtime.

Front-end .pro registry services (shared registry, Whois and DNS) use redundant clusters of inexpensive, Intel-based hardware. While individual hosts lack the complete redundancy of the Sun Enterprise hardware used for database servers, RegistryPro will use modern layer 4 load balancing techniques to instantly removed failed servers from production should a fault arise. The Big-IP load balancers that RegistryPro will deploy allow the use of extensive health checks on both the server and the application; if a particular node fails a health check, the load balancer will not direct any additional user requests to that node. In this model, each server operates as a redundant complement to all of the other servers in its cluster.

All elements of the network (as described in Attachment 11) have been designed with redundancy in mind. All servers, storage arrays, and other production hosts will attach to the network using at least two ethernet connections (each to a separate switch). Although significantly less prone to failure than server hardware, all network components, including routers, switches, firewalls and load balancers, will be installed in redundant configurations running in high availability mode. Generally speaking, the failure of any network element will result in a seamless failover to redundant hardware within seconds. One of the least reliable components of the network is likely to be the registry’s connection to the Internet. RegistryPro will use at least two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) at each of its locations, and will use the Border Gateway Protocol to intelligently share traffic and prevent the failure of either ISP from taking the registry offline.

Hardware redundancy will be complimented by advanced monitoring, clustering and data replication software. RegistryPro will use Veritas Cluster Server software to monitor, fault-detect and recover Oracle database services at both the primary and secondary location. This software allows for the creation of flexible policies, will notify RegistryPro personnel in the event of a failure, and allows for cascading automatic recovery from consecutive failures. As described in Attachment 14, RegistryPro’s DNS server application implements multiple layers of internal redundancy, and allows for real-time notification of system administrators or other key employees in the event of a failure. Section D15.2.9 has described the .pro registry’s security model in detail, but it is worth re-iterating that in addition to the passive protections provided by firewalls, hardened systems and robust authentication measures, RegistryPro will actively monitor for attempted breaches in security through the use of intrusion detection systems, log file analysis, and other tools such as Tripwire.

In order to detect problems before they result in outages, RegistryPro will engage in aggressive 24/7 monitoring of all .pro registry systems. High server loads, unexpected volumes of traffic, suspicious error messages in logs, slow performance, and other tell-tale signs of problems to come will be automatically detected so that RegistryPro staff can be notified and set to work correcting any potential problem. RegistryPro will use a suite of monitoring tools to pre-emptively detect failures in either hardware or software components well before they develop into downtime events.

Core .pro services will be housed within world-class hosting facilities meeting the most stringent specification. These facilities offer multiple layers of physical security combined with 24/7 monitoring, fire suppression, and redundant communications facilities. In order to ensure power availability and conditioning, UPS systems are maintained throughout the facilities, and generators have been installed for the contingency of a long-term power failure.

D15.2.13. System recovery procedures. Procedures for restoring the system to operation in the event of a system outage, both expected and unexpected. Identify redundant/diverse systems for providing service in the event of an outage and describe the process for recovery from various types of failures, the training of technical staff who will perform these tasks, the availability and backup of software and operating systems needed to restore the system to operation, the availability of the hardware needed to restore and run the system, backup electrical power systems, the projected time for restoring the system, the procedures for testing the process of restoring the system to operation in the event of an outage, the documentation kept on system outages and on potential system problems that could result in outages.

Although the extensive redundancy and monitoring described in D15.2.12 make a major system outage unlikely, RegistryPro has created a number of contingencies for recovery from various types of failures. The complete replication of all production systems at both Dublin and Needham provides geographic diversity that spans not only multiple political jurisdictions, but two continents. Because each site is independently capable of providing all registry functions, even a massive failure such as the complete destruction of the primary facility in a natural disaster or nuclear blast would not result in significant downtime for the .pro registry.

Several types of failure and the recovery mechanism are described below.

Database failure

A total of five database servers and three storage arrays provide cascading fallbacks and allow the registry to recover from multiple consecutive failures. The complete design of this database redundancy is described in D15.2.3. RegistryPro will use Veritas Cluster Server to detect and recover from failures in database hardware or the storage subsystem. In the event of the failure of all three databases at the primary site, Veritas Global Cluster Manager software will control a failover of the database and all core registry operations to the secondary site. This failover process should generally be completed within minutes.

Server failure

Generally speaking, the failure of an individual Whois, shared registry, or name server will not result in downtime. RegistryPro’s layer-4 load balancers will rapidly detect these failures, stop sending requests to the failed node, and notify system administration staff who can then repair the failed system without incurring downtime. Similarly, individual servers behaving erratically or in need of maintenance can be intentionally disabled at the load balancer and repaired. The redundancy and data recovery model of the DNS system’s clusters are described further in Attachment 14.

Cluster failure

In the unlikely event of the failure of an entire cluster of servers at the primary site, such as all of the shared registry servers or the master DNS cluster, RegistryPro could perform a controlled database failover from the active site to the standby site. Once again, Veritas Global Cluster Manager would facilitate the actual failover process. Upon completion of the failover, database operations and other registry functions would resume at the secondary site.

Satellite DNS clusters may also fail. In that event, attempting to move database operations from the primary to secondary site is neither useful nor appropriate. Instead, using BGP announcements and “anycast” techniques[9], the IP addresses used at the failed cluster will be moved to an alternate cluster, which will answer requests directed at both its own IP addresses and those previously allocated to the failed cluster. Each cluster will also have a set of non-production IP addresses that can be used to administer the hosts in the event that the cluster’s primary IP range has been moved to another site.

Network failure

The .pro registry is built with extensive network redundancy. The use of high-availability techniques, such as HSRP and the spanning tree algorithm, mean that the failure of a network component will create no more than seconds of downtime before redundant equipment resumes the operation of the failed component. As described in D15.2.12, both the primary and secondary sites for the .pro registry will have redundant connections to the Internet through diverse Internet Service Providers. As described in Attachment 11, RegistryPro will use BGP to announce its space to each providers; in the event of the failure of an individual link or even an entire ISP, the Internet’s routing architecture will automatically redirect traffic through the other ISP. If both ISPs at the primary site should fail automatically, Veritas Global Cluster Manager will be used to move registry operations to the secondary site.

Power Failure

All sites will be protected by both UPS systems and generators to ensure continuous electrical power. In the event of an unexpected power failure at the primary site despite these precautions, a failover to the secondary site will allow operations to be resumed within minutes of the failure.

Unexpected Failure

There may be types of failure that are not currently anticipated. These failures could be extremely catastrophic and theoretically both the primary and secondary site could be affected. In order to protect against unknown threats, several disaster recovery contingencies exist:

§ Because satellite DNS clusters do not depend on either the presence of a functioning database or the continuous operation of the master DNS cluster, they should continue to operate normally even in the event of an event affecting both the primary and secondary site. Due to the importance of DNS services to the overall stability of the Internet, satellite clusters have been designed to operate nearly indefinitely even without any contact from centralized administration

§ All data is backed up frequently. Physical database backups are performed on a daily basis, logical backups are performed twice daily, and redo logs are archived every five minutes. Application data is stored both on off-site development systems and is backed up on a daily basis. Tape backups are routinely moved to off-site locations, and data escrow services will be used to ensure that this information is stored and available. In the event of a catastrophic failure affecting both sites, it would be possible to restore data from tape in a relatively straightforward manner. RegistryPro will use Veritas Net Backup to manage the backup process and to facilitate the speedy recovery of data if needed.

§ RegistryPro’s systems have been designed primarily using commonly available hardware and software. The Intel x86 hardware used in server clusters are nearly ubiquitous in today’s market, and Sun Enterprise hardware is readily available throughout the world. Even in a situation in which both the primary and secondary sites were completely destroyed, it would be possible to rebuild an operational portion of the .pro registry infrastructure using relatively common components combined with stored application and database information.

D15.2.14. Technical and other support. Support for registrars and for Internet users and registrants. Describe technical help systems, personnel accessibility, web‑based, telephone and other support, support services to be offered, time availability of support, and language‑availability of support.

Most billing and customer support for the .pro registry will be outsourced, and managed by RegistryPro. The registry will additionally provide high level technical support for issues that cannot or should not be resolved by the outsource provider. Problems will be escalated through RegistryPro’s system administration team, who will attempt to identify the cause of any problems and rectify them. If needed, the system administration team will further escalate the issue to senior or specialized technical staff (for example network engineers, database administrators or developers) to provide resolution to issues beyond the scope of the system administrators’ duties.

Problems will be tracked through a ticketing system that had been developed at Register.com. This system provides extensive problem tracking and reporting capabilities, and is currently used to handle interaction with tens of thousands of customers every month.

RegistryPro will seek to proactively notify customers of problems as they occur. Contact will generally be made through e-mail; however, if the scope of a technical problem affects the registry’s capacity to send e-mail messages, an attempt will be made to make contact with registrars by telephone or facsimile. Registrars will be notified well in advance of planned maintenance events, and will be invited to provide feedback regarding the registry’s technical operations on a regular basis.

RegistryPro will provide urgent notice of any catastrophic outage, or disaster recovery involving critical operations to the registry, and will follow up with regular reports by a senior registry systems engineer as long as needed. Systems outage involving non-critical operations to the registry shall receive similar regular, but less frequent, reports as long as needed.

RegistryPro is building a redundant system, in which outages are not expected. If such outages occur, however, RegistryPro technical staff will provide advance notice to operating registrars of such outages or upcoming maintenance.

The technical and other support services will be provided on a 24/7 basis, 365 days per year in order to equally accommodate registrars around the world. Although English will be the primary support language, RegistryPro intends to seek staff that can communicate in several common languages. The JV partners’ practice is to employ technical and other support staff who can between them provide multi-lingual support.

Access to sensitive registrar critical data will be limited. Read only status will be available to help desk entry level employees or outsource employees for such data in order to prevent inadvertent changes to registrar records. Support staff will be prohibited from providing information about other registrar’s operations. For further details, please see the security description in D15.2.9.

D15.3 Subcontractors. If you intend to subcontract any the following:

1. all of the registry operation function; any portion of the registry function accounting for 10% or more of overall costs of the registry function; or

2. any portion of any of the following parts of the registry function accounting for 25% or more of overall costs of the part: database operation, zone file generation, zone file distribution and publication, billing and collection, data escrow and backup, and Whois service please

(a) identify the subcontractor;

(b) state the scope and terms of the subcontract; and
(c) attach a comprehensive technical proposal from the subcontractor that describes its technical plans and capabilities in a manner similar to that of the Technical Capabilities and Plan section of the Registry Operator's Proposal. In addition, subcontractor proposals should include full information on the subcontractor's technical, financial, and management capabilities and resources.

No Subcontractors are included.

Registry Operator's Signature Page.

By signing this Registry Operator's Proposal, the undersigned certifies (a) that he or she has authority to do so on behalf of the registry operator and, on his or her own behalf and on behalf of the registry operator, (b) that all information contained in this proposal, and all documents attached to this proposal, is true and accurate to the best of his/her/its knowledge and information. The undersigned and the registry operator understand that any material misstatement or misrepresentation will reflect negatively on any application of which this proposal is a part and may cause cancellation of any delegation of a top‑level domain based on such an application.

Please see RegistryPro's hardcopy submission of this application for the complete and original signature.

_______________________________

Signature

_______________________________

Name (please print)

_______________________________

Title

_______________________________

Name of Registry Operator

_______________________________

Date

Updated August 15, 2000

[2] http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/internet-drafts/draft-hollenbeck-grrp-reqs-04.txt

[3] http://www.i-d-n.net/draft/draft-ietf-idn-requirements-03.txt

[4] See RFC 2279 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2279.txt)

[5] The Universal Character set is defined by ISO-10646.

[9] RFC 1546 (see http://www.xyweb.com/rfc/rfc1546.html)

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