Approval of AROS Contract Agreement

ICANN's Disbursement Policy limits ICANN officers from contracting for or disbursing more than US $500,000.00 per obligation. ICANN is therefore adhering to its policy in seeking the Board's approval to enter into these contractual obligations that exceed the $500,000 per obligation item. ICANN identified a vendor to build the AROS system and the contract with the vendor is estimated at $650,450, including license. The proposed solution is an Automated Registrar Onboarding System (AROS) for ICANN accredited Registrars. The system described in this document is intended to provide Registrars with a consistent user interface for managing information about their Registrar and when requesting accreditation by (primarily) Generic Top-Level Domain Registries, a workspace in which Registries can manage accreditation requests from Registrars, and an administrative interface that allows an ICANN-designated Administrator to manage AROS. The requirements for the system were developed by the Working Group (WG) composed of representatives from the Registry and Registrar stakeholder groups, ICANN staff and an outside consultant specialized in requirements. The representatives from the registry and registrar groups (three of each) are volunteers identified by the respective stakeholder chairs. In addition to the working team described, staff has conducted surveys with registries and registrars on two occasions to validate the requirements. The Board's approval of entering into this contractual obligation will have a positive impact on the community because it will allow for a more timely and efficient way for the registries and registrars to contract. By doing that, ICANN is empowering a more competitive and efficient environment. There are fiscal impacts on ICANN but all of those impacts have been anticipated in the approved FY 2013 and draft FY 2014 budgets. There will not be any security, stability or resiliency issues relating to the domain names system.