ISC to Deploy the First Root Name Server in Southern Hemisphere
Vendors Pool Resources to develop, install and operate root nameserver in New Zealand
Redwood City, CA -- ISC, Inc. (ISC) together with FX Networks, Juniper Networks, TelstraClear and 2Day.com announced today the deployment of a new Root Name Server for the Australasia region. The new root server will be a replica of the server that currently operates at ISC, the "F-root server" and will improve the performance and stability of Internet services in the Southern hemisphere and globally.
"New Zealand now emerges from Internet childhood with the deployment of the f-root servers. This provides an authoritative root within the country allowing a measure of independence in the Electronic World," commented Roger De Salis, managing director, FX Networks.
"Juniper Networks is delighted to help strengthen New Zealand's Internet infrastructure through the deployment of f-root servers locally," said Shaun Page, director, Australia and New Zealand for Juniper Networks. "Major New Zealand service providers recognise our M-Series routers as a robust platform for building out critical IP infrastructure. High performance support for features such as packet filtering and IPv6 will help New Zealand's network community to adapt and migrate to meet the requirements of the future."
The new mirror is the result of the collaboration, cooperation and contributions of several companies. CityLink will provide connectivity to the Auckland Peering Exchange (APE). FX Networks contributes the server hardware for the nameserver cluster and Juniper Networks provided its high-performance M-series routing platform. TelstraClear provides collocation and remote management services and 2Day.com will contribute network management services. ISC will operate and manage the server as a mirror of its f-root server.
Paul Vixie, ISC Chairman, said, "Joint efforts, such as this one, to provide new root nameserver mirrors throughout the world will improve the performance and integrity of the Internet. We are pleased with our progress to strengthen the Internet around the globe by providing more points of defense against attacks on the infrastructure of the Internet."
Peter Mott, Chief Enthusiast at 2day.com, said "As operators of the Antarctica [.aq] and Pitcairn Islands [.pn] top level domain registries, we are more than pleased to support the f-root server in New Zealand."
There are 13 "root name servers" worldwide and without them the Internet would not be able to work. Of these, nine are located in the USA, one in Asia and two in Europe. By increasing the footprint of these servers with mirrors located throughout the world, the overall performance of the Internet increases as more resources are deployed to handle the growing Internet traffic and the ability to disperse malicious traffic directed at root servers expands.
About ISC
ISC (www.isc.org) was founded in 1993 to develop and publish high quality reference implementations of core Internet protocols including DNS and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). ISC's DNS implementation, called BIND, was originally developed at UC Berkeley as part of the BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) system, and has subsequently been completely rewritten at ISC. Most DNS servers on the Internet run BIND or BIND- derived software. Currently there are only 13 root servers, from A to M, in the world. ISC operates and maintains the F-root server. ISC's reference implementation of DHCP is the de facto standard for all UNIX and UNIX-like systems including Linux and BSD.
For more information:
ISC: www.isc.org Carol Nash carol_nash@isc.org
Juniper Networks: www.juniper.net, Ross Inglis ringlis@juniper.net
CityLink: www.citylink.co.nz, Andy Linton asjl@citylink.co.nz
FX Networks: www.fx.net.nz Roger De Salis roger@desalis.gen.nz
TelstraClear: www.telstraclear.co.nz , Mathew Bolland Mathew.bolland@team.telstraclear.co.nz
2Day.com: www.2day.com , Peter Mott peter@2day.com
