Verisign Delegates Four New gTLDs to the Root Zone

• By • Domain Names

Guest post from Pat Kane, Senior Vice President, Naming and Directory Services

On Oct. 23, 2013, at approximately 11:00 a.m. EDT, Verisign received authorization instructions from the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to delegate four new gTLDs into the root zone, which we are responsible for maintaining per the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and NTIA. Verisign acted in accordance with our contractual obligation and delegated these TLDs into the root zone at 2:33 p.m. EDT the same day.

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Diversity, Openness and vBSDcon 2013

• By • Domain Names

“There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity”

–Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne (1533–1592)

Diversity is a central design principle of the Domain Name System. With respect to the DNS root, it’s the reason that there are 13 separately managed root servers with 12 independent operators. It’s the reason Verisign operates the two root servers we’re responsible for – the A and J roots – as well as other name servers – at multiple locations around the world. It’s also the reason that within these locations operated by Verisign, multiple physical servers handle the incoming traffic. And it’s the reason that among these multiple servers, we use multiple hardware and software platforms, as well as multiple network providers.

In other words, diversity is one reason the DNS industry in general, and Verisign in particular, doesn’t do everything the same way and in the same place.

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Connecting With Verisign: Seven Months In

• By • Domain Names

As a technology leader whose career objective is to help build a connected digital world, it’s hard for me to envision a better place to be at this time in internet history than Verisign.

That’s what I needed to be convinced of earlier this year when I decided to leave a good job with great people at another leading IT company to become Verisign’s CTO. Seven months later, I haven’t been disappointed.

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