Application number: 1-1825-82923 for REGION D ALSACE

REGION D ALSACE

+33 3 88 15 67 68

+33 3 88 15 68 15

http:⁄⁄www.region-alsace.eu

Mr. Benjamin Louis

Consultant

+33 6 12 45 66 48

tld.alsace@sdv.fr

Mr. Jean-Luc Schaller

Projet manager gTLD Alsace

+33 3 88 15 69 95

jean-luc.schaller@region-alsace.eu

Territorial Collectivity

The Article 72 of the French Constitution of 1958 recognizes the Regions as territorial authorities.
The territory covered by the Alsace Region is defined by the decree 60-516 of June 2nd 1960.
The Law 72-619 of July 5th 1972 declares regions as public establishments administrated by the Regional Council. The Law of March 2nd 1982 gives the Regions far greater autonomy in decision-making. Since 1986 the Regional Council is elected by universal suffrage.

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Alain Demare
General Deputy Director of Alsace Region in charge of Technical Services
André Reichardt
1st Vice-President of the Regional Council of Alsace in charge of International Relations, Senator of Bas-Rhin
François Bouchard
General Director for Services for Alsace Region
François Cavard
Assistant General Director of Services for Alsace Region
François Loos
2nd Vice-President fo the Regional Council of Alsace in charge of Economic Development
Philippe Richert
President of the Regional Council of Alsace, Minister for local Authorities

alsace

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No potential operational or rendering problem concerning the applied-for the .alsace gTLD string has been detected.
We will set up actions to ensure that the .alsace gTLD string will be indexed in directories like Mozilla.

Purpose of the .alsace extension 

The geographic gTLD .alsace features as part of the global strategy established by the President of Alsace Regional Council. The aim of the project is to reinforce regionʹs economic attractiveness, to assert its regional identity in order to promote the region and thereby to increase the national and international visibility of its institutions, business and cultural life. 

The development of Alsace as an attractive territory needs to be clearly anchored in a strong regional identity and in the perception of that identity by regional stakeholders and external partners.
This is why in 2010 Alsace Regional Council decided to create the concept of a shared brand that would be supported by all the public and private institutions in the region. Alsace is one of the first regions in France to make such a progressive move. It is being implemented as a participative, global project.
Consequently, we believe that the .alsace gTLD is a strong symbol and the most relevant tool to reflect our determination, convey the Regionʹs image and culture and help federate the regional economic actors around this symbol. 

Is the world looking for Alsace? Letʹs help it to us! The .alsace gTLD will increase the global visibility of the future .alsace domain name holders on the internet. They will be able to assert themselves clearly as Alsatian, which is not possible with existing generic extensions.

The .alsace gTLD as a major driver of the popularity of the Alsace Region

First of all, owning a site with the .alsace extension is a way of promoting Alsace. Alsace is border region located in the centre of Europe, on Franceʹs eastern border and on the west bank of the Upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland, with the Vosges mountains forming a natural border on the Western side. Because of its historical and geographical background, Alsace is a clearly identified region in Europe. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as the largest city in Alsace is Strasbourg, and the fact that the latter is the seat of numerous international organisations and bodies make Alsace one of the politically most important regions in the European Union. 

Presentation of Alsace:
Alsace is a cultural, historic and administrative region of France. Neighbouring Germany and Switzerland, it is situated in the upper Rhine valley, at the heart of the European megalopolis which stretches from London to Milan, in whose development process it shares.
It is a densely populated region. With 1.8 million inhabitants, it presents a demographic density (219 inhabitants per km²) more than twice the average density in France. Its positive demographic makes it a young region compared with the other regions of France.
Alsace is also the offspring of its history. Its French culture is deeply rooted in the cultural history of the former German and Austrian empires. And though the French language is commonly used, the Alsatian dialect still finds a place in every day conversations.
As it therefore enjoys a dual culture and is, to all intents and purposes, bilingual, it is in essence a region open to the rest of the world. 
This international outlook also finds its counterpart in the economic arena. The fourth largest export region in France, companies funded by foreign capital employ nearly 40% of the salaried population of Alsace.
The excellence of its higher education establishments, particularly Strasbourg University, which has won two Nobel prizes over that last 25 years, makes Alsace a major region in terms of research in Europe and the rest of the world. It welcomes more than 8,000 foreign students, nearly 2,200 of them doctoral or post-doctoral.
Alsaceʹs place in Europe and the rest of the world also bears the stamp of Strasbourgʹs singular vocation as ʺCapital of Europeʺ.
The seat of three major institutions of European democracy – the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights – Alsace is deeply attached to the Rhineland humanism which nurtured its history. More than thirty international institutions can be found here, including the International Space University, the Franco-German television broadcaster, ARTE, the EUROPOL and SCHENGEN computer centres, the Human Frontier Science Program, etc. This international involvement extends to the presence in Strasbourg of nearly 40 consular representations.
Finally, the quality of its landscapes, the vestiges of its history and its cultural life, which manifest themselves in the urban planning of its cities and the architecture of its villages, earned it the accolade of being listed in Lonely Planetʹs top ten tourist destinations in 2010.
Proud of its history and traditions, Alsace is resolutely open to the world and ready to conquer its future. The Alsace brand will embody its qualities and use .alsace to carry it forward into the immense world of the internet. 
 
A study carried out by a firm of consultants as part of the ʺAlsaceʺ trademark project found that:
Alsace enjoys a strong identity within Europe
Its image needs to be rendered more dynamic and pro-active.
This further confirms the Regional Councilʹs motivation for applying for the .alsace geographic gTLD 

The .alsace gTLD as a powerful communication tool.

This is the best way for local institutions (organisations, towns and villages, specialised entities) to identify themselves and assert their local nature.
The new gTLD represents a dual opportunity for local companies: it will allow them to use words or names that may no longer be available in the common TLDs like .fr or .com and thereby to express their identity.
Finally, as Alsace is also an important tourist region, the gTLD will be an invaluable and powerful communication tool for all tourism professionals and for regional organisations that are promoting Alsace as a tourist destination worldwide.
Finally, the need to structure the offer and win over a new clientele, as well as to conduct major projects for Alsace, is also emphasised in the diagnostic study carried out for the Alsace brand. The creation of the .alsace gTLD is a major project, which will lead to a more relevant offer able to win over a new clientele.

Steadfast support.

The .alsace gTLD project has the full support of local political leaders (mayors, members of parliament, other elected representatives), of industry and business, and more specifically our large export companies (Alsace is Franceʹs largest exporter per capita), of the cultural community and obviously of Alsatians in general. . The regional tourism promotion organisations and companies living on and with tourism are also strongly in favour of the .alsace project.

Role and mission of the gTLD

Beyond the commercial development of local businesses, the reputation of the region and its attractiveness as a tourist destination, the gTLD is also intended to carry the deployment of new technologies into remote rural areas.
A few years ago, the Regional Council together with other local institutional partners decided to speed up the development and accessibility of the internet throughout Alsace, including in the villages furthest away from the major urban centres. This led to the creation of a joint venture whose aim was to spread internet access across the whole of the region.
The .alsace gTLD is therefore also a strategic tool in this mission.

i.
Alsace Regional Council is seeking to make the .alsace gTLD a part of a comprehensive quality and visibility-oriented approach.
The extension is open to all types of entities, natural or legal persons with a head office or an establishment, or an address in Alsace.
Each domain name registered will be approved by the registry services in order to ensure the sustainability, the image and the service level of the extension.
The information concerning the owner and the administrative contact will be checked. In this way the registry services will be accessible. 

There is no particular specialisation: the extension is open to any sort of activity and any word, as long as the words used in the domain name do not undermine public order, morality or the rights guaranteed by the Constitution or French law.

The applicant will not be able to register any domain name using an expression that infringes either intellectual property rights or personality rights. Any terms that could be detrimental to national, regional or local authorities, institutions or public services will be forbidden. A list will be drawn up of words for which domains may not be purchased.

In order to expand the reputation and to encourage the success of the Alsace trademark, the .alsace extension will follow the guidelines below:

Focus on developing a sustainable level of excellence
Build a successful shared trademark 
Create an outstanding degree of mobilisation

ii.
Creating the .alsace gTLD will help to promote the image of Alsace on global information networks and thereby bring clear added value to the internet naming system compared to .fr, the French national ccTLD.

Many Alsatian cities, towns, companies or institutions are not able to register their own names with extensions like .fr, .com or .eu because they are already taken. This means there is a misunderstanding on a lot of these names. The following example clearly demonstrates this problem: although Strasbourg is the Capital of the Region and of Europe, the domain name strasbourg.com is owned by a private company.
Domain names using the .alsace extension will give registrants based in Alsace better visibility.

Compared to the rest of France, Alsace is a region that has purchased a very large number of domain names.
Statistics show that the .alsace gTLD will foster competition and open up the internet to more operators.

Our study has shown that today there are over 5,000 domain names including the word ʺalsaceʺ with all the different extensions. Add to this 224 domains containing the word ʺalsacienʺ (Alsatian). It is also worth noting that Alsace is one of the regions with the highest number of domains registered per 1,000 inhabitants. 

The Alsace Region also wishes to differentiate itself in the field of youth and education. It is the only region in France to introduce a digital workspace in its secondary schools.

Alsace is an innovative region, with a concern to provide training for young people. It is also the first Region to implement such a far-reaching and ambitious digital policy in France. The .alsace extension will enable the Region to accelerate its educational development programmes and offer new solutions to Alsatian children. The wide-ranging coverage of the extension (domain names, websites, e-mail, social and school networks....) will allow the Strasbourg education authority to implement new local and global projects.

Over the last 10 years Alsace Regional Council has invested an average of 2 million Euros a year to provide the 75 senior high schools it runs with about 2, 000 new computers every year. The Region manages 1,600 workstations in its senior high schools.

It has also provided broadband internet access, with 70% of schools now benefitting from fibre optics at an annual running cost of 500,000 Euros (about US$660,000). This policy will enable a further 220 secondary schools in the Region to be equipped with broadband by 2014.

The digital workspace has been rolled out to all schools. Alsace Regional Council and Strasbourg education authority worked hard to complete the installation of the digital workspace in all its schools by September 2010, for a total cost of €800,000 ($1.057m).
The digital workspace currently covers 65,000 pupils and teachers, with 1 million connections per month.

In France, the first generation of digital workplaces mostly concerns school planning and management. The second generation will focus on the teaching aspect, with the provision of online lessons designed by the teachers themselves and the use of digital libraries and online resources. This new generation system will begin to be rolled out from 2014 onwards, with the support of the Regional Council, the two Departemental Councils and the Education authority.
The .alsace extension will be a big step forward, enabling the general public and parents to see the progress made and providing greater transparency: each secondary school will be able to have its own domain name to allow it to communicate and dialogue.

iii.
Thanks to the .alsace gTLD the Alsatian internal market should become much more visible on the internet-based virtual market. It will also provide a strong, clear link with the Alsatian community and the local market.

Companies, institutions and natural persons will be able to register with a specific domain which will highlight this link. The .alsace gTLD as such will not only be a critical element in Alsatian e-commerce, but it will also contribute largely to the achievement of the objectives set for the Alsace trademark.

By using an .alsace domain name, each registrant will be conveying a strong message and identity, as well as certain values and a desire to promote Alsace in the world.

The study revealed that Alsace is closely linked to a certain specific local values. The values Alsace intends to use to develop the trademark are:
Excellence and the pioneering spirit
Humanism and the notion of world citizenship
Intensity and pleasure
Balance and the creation of links

The extension will therefore give registrants access to a positive and forms part of a strategy of co-branding.

The .alsace gTLD will give Alsace better access to the benefits of the information society and help combat the risk of a digital divide with rural areas being left behind. This point is a priority for Alsace Regional Council.

As its remit includes regional development and planning, Alsace Regional Council has decided to install a very high speed broadband network under a Public Service Delegation contract.
This led to the Regional Council deciding to create Alsace Connexia in a joint venture with these companies:
SFR Collectivités, a telecommunications operator, subsidiary of the SFR group (Franceʹs second largest landline⁄mobile telephone and internet provider).
Numéricable, a leading cable provider.
Alsace Connexiaʹs mission is to design, create, operate and sell the regional high-speed broadband network and supply the related services, through a 15-year concession.

Alsace Connexia is an operator of internet operators and works with many regional, national and international operators.
The Alsace Region has thus decided to set and operate a broadband network interconnecting 30 Alsatian towns, with a view to encouraging the appearance and⁄or development of electronic communications services in these towns and the surrounding areas.

The Alsace Regionʹs initiative is intended to:
- promote diversity in the broadband offer available in the region
- progressively reduce the areas without broadband coverage
- achieve a levelling of rates at regional level by offering a single basic charge for all Alsatian users, whether companies or residential.
- guarantee the long-term management of underground space and coherent infrastructure development.

iv.
The adoption of a general policy concerning the speculative and abusive registration of domain names should guarantee the owners of earlier rights recognised or established by national and⁄or Community and public bodies that they will benefit from a ʺsunrise periodʺ during which the registration of their domain names will be exclusively reserved for them.

The Alsace Region will implement several sunrise periods for various audiences with the following order of priority:

Sunrise 1 will last several months and will apply to public players such as cities, towns, villages, consular chambers, local institutions, universities, high schools... This phase will allow them to register their name or business name. All the eligibility criteria must be met.

Sunrise 2 will last several months and will apply to the Alsatian non-profit associations so that they can register their name or abbreviation. All the eligibility criteria must be met

Sunrise 3 will apply to Alsatian companies, so that they can register their name and⁄or trademark, provided that they are able to prove they own the said trade name or trademark. All the eligibility criteria must be met. Sunrise periods 2 and 3 will run concurrently.

A landrush phase open to all will follow, once the sunrise periods have finished. During this period, the fee will be higher than that applied during the period of general availability. 
This period will last several months and will allow the registration of generic domains without any restrictions except those imposed by law. 
If several compliant aplications are made for the same domain name, the domain name will be put up for auction.
The registrar will do everything possible to prevent abuse; therefore all applications, including during the sunrise and landrush periods, will be checked in order to avoid the registration of abusive domain names, cybersquatting, spamdexing, phishing and other such abuses. In the cruising period, the registry will carry out checks to ensure the eligibility criteria are met.
The protection of local companiesʹ trademarks and the names of local institutions will be one of the registrarʹs top priorities.

v.
Confidentiality measures
All documents and information held by or provided to Alsace Regional Council (except those accessible on the ʺWhoisʺ database) are automatically considered as confidential and will not be disclosed to any third parties.

However, this provision does not concern the communication of documents ordered by a French court or as part of a request formulated by an approved national authority (the DGCCRF (the body responsible for competition, consumer affairs and the prevention of fraud), the CNIL (the national commission for data protection and civil liberties), the tax and customs authorities, etc.).
The ʺWhoisʺ database
Alsace Regional Council is in charge of the ʺWhoisʺ database, which contains all the data collected necessary to the identification of legal and natural persons who own domain names and the to the registration of domain names.
The Alsace Region manages all the technical aspects of this reference database including access to its services.
Access to personal data.
The duly identified owner of a domain name has a right of access to the concerning him via the registrar or the registration office depending on the case. He also has a right of rectification through his registration office, which is entitled to ask for an administrative amendment at any time.

Restrictions
All information concerning domain name holders, the technical and administrative contacts, whether natural or legal persons, will be available online to anybody.

Nevertheless, as requested by the CNIL (national commission for data protection and civil liberties), when the registration is made by a natural person, the holder may opt for ʺrestricted publicationʺ. 

When this option is chosen, no personal information (name, address, phone and fax number, e-mail address) is posted online in the ʺWhoisʺ database. Only technical information such as the technical contact, registration office and DNS servers will be available.

vi.
Alsace Regional Council will implement a communication plan to inform the public of the creation and commercialisation of the .alsace extension.
A website will be created to promote the extension and inform applicants about terms and conditions, registration procedures, the sunrise and landrush periods, etc..
Public bodies (cities, villages, consular chambers, secondary schools, universities, the Departemental Councils, etc.) will receive a letter specifically inviting them to contact the Regional Council or their registration office in order to benefit from the sunrise period.

Information will be available on partnersʹ websites (Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Chambers of Trades, all other bodies connected with the Regional Council); e-mails will be sent to Alsatian companies which may wish to register names and trademarks during the sunrise period.

Registration offices, especially the local ones, will be invited to use the extension logo and goodies on their websites.

Press releases will be sent to media editors, and the local media will be invited to a press conference to prepare the launch.

The communication campaign will take place on and off line. Depending on the targets and the periods, different communication channels will be used. The communication plan also includes the general public. Inserts in the press, a poster campaign in public places, radio adverts… all the most relevant media will be used.

i.
The sunrise and landrush periods will allow the anticipation of issues linked to trademarks and names of institutions, but also the selection among several applicants for the same domain name.

From the start of the Go-live period:
The applications to the Regional Council made by registrars will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis, in other words in chronological order of arrival.
An online form will be available to report any abuse and initiate dispute resolution procedures (URS, UDRP)

ii.
Entities assigned to Sunrise 1 and 2 will be able to register before the wider audience.
Choosing an .alsace domain name is not something to be done lightly and will be the result of careful reflection about the nature of the holderʹs business. Registrants will have the benefit of the image and identity of the .alsace extension carried by the shared Alsace trademark. They will be able to implement a co-branding policy beneficial to their image and that of the Region. 

Besides this notion of co-branding, applicants will have access to domain names that are already registered under .fr or .com. This availability will provide considerable opportunities for Alsatian internet publishers.

iii.
Alsace Region Council has decided to apply a policy of relatively high pricing in order to ensure the self-sufficient operation of the extension.
The amount of the charge will not rise, but will probably be reduced.
The price will not be modified in the next three years unless objectives on volume are not met, in which case the Region will decide to lower the charge to make the extension more attractive. The reduction in the rate will be passed on to all domain holders as from their renewal date after such a decision.

The possible impact of reducing the price of the extension will be studied to determine the size of the reduction and the objective in terms of growth in the number of registrations.

No

Not Available

Yes

Alsace Regional Council will follow the Resolution taken by the ICANN Board in Montevideo then in Accra which reserves all domain names for country and territory names contained on the ISO 3166-1 list.

Domains are reserved for the governments of the countries concerned.

The purchase process for country domains names by governments is the same as the Afilias process for .info:

1. The government or public authority concerned must inform the GAC that they have requested a registration and name the beneficiary.

2. The GAC will authenticate the request and then forward it to the ICANN and the Alsace Region.

3. The Alsace Region makes sure the domain is available and then creates an authorisation code that will be directly given to the beneficiary of the domain in the country concerned.

4. The beneficiary will register the name using his authorisation code through the accredited registrar.

Governments will be able to register as soon as the Sunrise 1 period starts.
The domains will be blocked for a 5-year period (as from the start date of Sunrise 1).
After that domains will become available for registration on a first-come, first-serve basis.

List of reserved domains:

aferikaborwa
afghanistan
afrikaborwa
afrikadzonga
afurikatshipembe
albania
algeria
americansamoa
andorra
angola
anguilla
antarctica
antarctique
antiguaandbarbuda
argentina
armenia
aruba
australia
austria
azerbaijan
bahamas
bahrain
bangladesh
barbados
belarus
belgie
belgien
belgique
belgium
belize
benin
bermuda
bhutan
bolivia
bosnaihercegovina
bosniaandherzegovina
botswana
bouvetisland
brasil
brazil
britishindianoceanterritory
britishvirginislands
bruneidarussalam
bulgaria
burkinafaso
burundi
caboverde
cambodia
cameroon
cameroun
canada
capeverde
caymanislands
centralafricanrepublic
ceskarepublika
chad
chile
china
christmasisland
cocos-keeling-islands
colombia
comores
comoros
congo
cookislands
costarica
cotedivoire
croatia
cuba
cyprus
czechrepublic
danmark
democraticpeoplesrepublicofkorea
democraticrepublicofthecongo
denmark
deutschland
djibouti
dominica
dominicanrepublic
easttimor
ecuador
eesta
egypt
eire
elsalvador
equatorialguinea
eritrea
ertra
espana
estonia
ethiopia
euroopanunioni
europaeischeunion
europaeiskeunion
europaischeunion
europeanunion
europeiskaunionen
europeseunie
falklandislands-malvinas
faroeislands
federatedstatesofmicronesia
fiji
finland
formeryugoslavrepublicofmacedonia
foroyar
france
frenchguiana
frenchpolynesia
frenchsouthernterritories
gabon
gambia
georgia
germany
ghana
gibraltar
greece
greenland
grenada
guadeloupe
guam
guatemala
guine-bissau
guinea
guinea-bissau
guineaecuatorial
guinee
guineeequatoriale
guyana
guyanefrancaise
haiti
heardislandandmcdonaldislands
holysee-vaticancitystate
honduras
hongkong
hrvatska
hungary
iceland
india
indonesia
iningizimuafrika
iran
iraq
ireland
isewulaafrika
islamicrepublicofiran
island
israel
italia
italy
jamaica
japan
jordan
jugoslavija
kalaallitnunaat
kazakstan
kenya
kiribati
kuwait
kyrgyzstan
laopeoplesdemocraticrepublic
laos
latvia
latvija
lebanon
lesotho
letzebuerg
liberia
libya
libyanarabjamahiriya
liechtenstein
lietuva
lithuania
luxembourg
macau
macedonia
madagascar
magyarorszag
malawi
malaysia
maldives
mali
malta
marshallislands
martinique
mauritania
mauritius
mayotte
mexico
micronesia
mocambique
moldova
monaco
mongolia
montserrat
morocco
mozambique
myanmar
namibia
nauru
nederland
nederlandseantillen
nepal
netherlands
netherlandsantilles
newcaledonia
newzealand
nicaragua
niger
nigeria
nippon
niue
noreg
norfolkisland
norge
northernmarianaislands
norway
nouvelle-caledonie
occupiedpalestinianterritory
oesterreich
oman
pakistan
palau
palestinianterritories
panama
papuanewguinea
paraguay
peru
philippines
pilipinas
pitcairn
poland
polska
polynesiefrancaise
portugal
puertorico
qatar
republicofkorea
republicofmoldova
republiquecentrafricaine
republiquedemocratiqueducongo
reunion
romania
russia
russianfederation
rwanda
saint-pierre-et-miquelon
sainthelena
saintkittsandnevis
saintlucia
saintpierreandmiquelon
saintvincentandthegrenadines
samoa
sanmarino
santasede-statodellacittadelvaticano
saotomeandprincipe
saotomeeprincipe
saudiarabia
Schweitz
senegal
seychelles
shqiperia
sierraleone
singapore
slovakia
slovenia
slovenija
slovensko
solomonislands
somalia
southafrica
southgeorgiaandthesouthsandwichislands
spain
srilanka
sudan
suidafrika
suisse
suomi
suriname
svalbardandjanmayen
sverige
svizra
svizzera
swaziland
sweden
switzerland
syria
syrianarabrepublic
taiwan
taiwanprovinceofchina
tajikistan
tanzania
tchad
terresaustralesfrancaises
thailand
togo
tokelau
tonga
trinidadandtobago
tunisia
turkey
turkiye
turkmenistan
turksandcaicosislands
tuvalu
uganda
ukraine
umzintsiafrika
uniaoeuropeia
unioneeuropea
unioneuropea
unioneuropeenne
unitedarabemirates
unitedkingdom
unitedrepublicoftanzania
unitedstates
unitedstatesminoroutlyingislands
uruguay
usvirginislands
uzbekistan
vanuatu
venezuela
vietnam
wallisandfutuna
wallisetfutuna
westernsahara
yemen
yugoslavia
zambia
zimbabwe

Table of Contents :

1 - Receipt of data from registrars concerning registration of domain names and nameservers : Shared Registration System (SRS)
2 - Operation of the Registry zone servers
3 - Provision to registrars of status information relating to the zone servers for the TLD
 3.1 - Standard DNS related status information
 3.2 - Emergency DNS related status information
4 - Dissemination of TLD zone files.
 4.1 - Incremental updates every 10 minutes
 4.2 - Complete publication of the zone
 4.3 - Propagation mechanism
 4.4 - Zone File Access⁄Distribution
5 - Dissemination of contact or other information concerning domain name registrations (Whois service)
6 - Internationalized Domain Names
7 - DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
 7.1 - Registrar Services
 7.2 - Signing Activity
8 - Other relevant services
 8.1 - Security and Redundancy
 8.2 - Consensus Policy Compliance


------------------------
1 - Receipt of data from registrars concerning registration of domain names and nameservers : Shared Registration System (SRS)
 
This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.

Operated by AFNIC, the .ALSACE TLD will adapt a domain shared registration system used in production by AFNIC to operate .fr zone and which has been fully functional for the past 15 years. This Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) based Shared Registration System (SRS) has exhibited the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the operational management of an initial thousands of domain names to over 2 million in late 2011.

The SRS exists to interact with the Registrar’s systems, who are responsible for the provisioning of a registrant’s domain name with the .ALSACE TLD registry. Registrars interact with the registry through two primary mechanisms : 
 * Communication machine to machine via an EPP client (Registrar) to an EPP Server API (Registry).
 * A Web Portal Interface that expresses the functionality of the EPP API. The Web Portal also provides access to user configuration and other back-office functions such as report and invoice retrieval.

SRS functionality includes standard functions and features such as :

 * Domain Registration : The AFNIC SRS supports synchronous registrations (creations) of domain names through the EPP domain create command. It supports updates of associative status, DNS and DNSSEC delegation information and EPP contact objects with a domain and the deletion of existing domains. This allows Registrars to create domain registrations, modify them and ultimately delete them.

 * Domain Renewal : The AFNIC SRS allows registrars to renew sponsored domains using the EPP renew command. The SRS automatically renews domain names upon expiry.

 * Transfer : The AFNIC SRS supports the transfer of a given domain between two Registrars in a secure fashion by requiring two party confirmations and the exchange of a token (the EPP authinfo code) associated with the domain.

 * Contact Objects : The AFNIC SRS supports the creation, update, association to domain objects, and deletion of EPP contact objects. This functionality supports the required information to supply contact data displayed in Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) (Whois) systems.

 * Hosts : A subordinate object of the domain object in an EPP based SRS, internal hosts are supported in the AFNIC SRS. These hosts cannot be removed when other 2nd level domains within the .ALSACE TLD zone are delegated to these nameservers. Delegation must be removed prior to the removal of the child hosts and a parent domain name to a given host in turn cannot be removed prior to the deletion of the related child host.

 * Redemption Grace Period (RGP) & Restoring deleted domain name registrations : AFNIC SRS supports the RGP for the purpose of retrieving erroneously deleted domain names prior to being made available again for public registration. 

Other features include :

 * Additional EPP commands in order to manage and update both domain and contact objects in the registry which are EPP info, check, delete and update commands. 

 * An inline billing system which is synchronised with the SRS. Actions can be taken daily from simple alerts to concrete account blocking.

 * Grace Periods and Refunds : the AFNIC SRS will support standard grace periods such as Add, Renew, Autorenew, Transfer and RGP grace periods. Refunds issued will reflect actual values deducted from registrar’s balance in consideration of any rebates issued conjunctively or separately for the relevant domain registration. 

 * The capacity to deal with reserved domain name registration. Reserved names are stored in a specific back office tool. Specific authorisations codes can be delivered out of band by support team to “unlock” creation of these reserved names. SRS uses standard EPP auth_info field in conformity with EPP RFCs to prevent or allow the registration of the domain name. 

[see attached diagram Q23_1_authorisation_code_workflow.pdf]
Diagram : Reserved names unlock
Description : This diagram illustrates process to unlock registration of reserved names. An out of band email process is used to deliver a specific authorisation_code, that can be used in EPP or through the web interface to register the domain name.

SRS EPP functions are compatible with the following list of RFCs :
RFCs 5910, 5730, 5731, 5732, 5733 and 5734. Since AFNIC will implement the Registry Grace Period (RGP), it will comply with RFC 3915 and the successors of the aforementioned RFCs. 
 

------------------------
2 - Operation of the Registry zone servers
 
The DNS resolution service is a core business of the Registry Operator. It is an essential function that must be provided with a very high level of service quality to satisfy queries concerning a zone 100% of the time with a response time as short as possible.

As the registry back-end service provider for the .ALSACE TLD, AFNIC has a set of sites, distributed internationally, to answer these queries. The high availability of responses is ensured by the number of servers that host the zone information; the response time is in turn linked to the geographical location of the servers (as near as possible to the exchange points and as a result to users). 

To ensure a very high level of availability of information and a response time as short as possible to a DNS query for a given zone, AFNIC has chosen to deploy its own DNS architecture, operated by our teams, while also relying on a set of internationally recognized service providers in order to significantly increase the number of servers hosting the zone to be published.

The AFNIC DNS service is based on the standards of RFCs (RFCs 1034, 1035, 1982, 2181, 2182, 2671, 3226, 3596, 3597, 4343, and 5966 and any future successors), related to the Internet, and the DNS in particular. 

In addition, special attention has been paid to the security component of the DNS servers and services in order to maintain a very high level of availability of the information, for example in the event of attacks or the denial of services. At present, a series of national and international servers are deployed as close as possible to the exchange points to ensure the DNS resolution service. To ensure a high level of availability, Anycast technology is applied to overcome the issues involved in the geographical location of sensitive servers. Through an effective pooling of DNS server resources, it ensures better resistance to denial of service attacks as the number of physical servers to attack is very high, and the geographical attraction of traffic by each server is very strong. Maintenance of the nodes is also improved since interventions on a given server have no effect on the visibility of the Anycast cloud for users.
As explained in the answer to Question 34 (Geographic Diversity), the registry also relies on two operators of Anycast clouds to expand the international coverage of the DNS nodes which must respond to queries for the domain extensions hosted on them. The two operators are Netnod Autonomica and PCH (Packet Clearing House) who are both known for their high quality services; in addition, Netnod Autonomica hosts one the root server i.root-servers.net.
 

------------------------
3 - Provision to registrars of status information relating to the zone servers for the TLD

Registrars interactions with the Registry Systems in two states in regards to the state of the TLD zone servers : 
 * an operational state where normal registry transactions and operational policies⁄practices result in a cause and effect in resolution of relevant domains AND 
 * an emergency state where resolution could be threatened by operational problems due to either internal or external factors to the DNS services.

 ------------------------
 3.1 - Standard DNS related status information

The SRS supports related updates to domain objects that allow a Registrar to populate internal (glue record) and or external DNS hosts associated with the domain. External hosts result in the correct associated NS records being inserted into the current TLD zone file, this in turns results in DNS resolution being delegated to the identified external hosts. The SRS expresses this status to the Registrar as “Active” in both the EPP API and the SRS Web Portal. The registrar may suspend the NS records associated with the external hosts by applying an EPP client HOLD in the system, which will also be displayed as a status in the same manner. This holds true of the Registry when it applied “Server Hold”. Internal hosts follow the same behaviour with one exception, IP addresses must also be provided to the SRS by the registrar for Internal hosts, resulting in A records or⁄and AAAA records for IPv6 (also known as glue records) being added to the zone file.

 ------------------------
 3.2 - Emergency DNS related status information

AFNIC registry services maintain emergency Network Operation Center (NOC) and Customer Service personnel on a 24⁄7⁄365 basis to address escalation and customer issue management. Part of these teams responsibility is to maintain contact lists for technical notification of regular or emergency situations including email lists, names and contact numbers. In the unlikely event that DNS resolution or DNS updates were or were expected to fall out of ICANN mandated SLAs, registrars will be contacted proactively by their email lists, status alerts will be posted to the Registry Operator’s Registrar Relations Web Portals and Customer Service personnel will be prepared to take and address calls on the current DNS status.


------------------------ 
4 - Dissemination of TLD zone files.

Publication of DNS resolution data to the TLD DNS nodes serving resolution :
One of the main challenges of DNS resolution is to provide updated information about the resources associated with a registered domain name. As soon as information is updated by a registrar on behalf of a customer, the latter expects the server to be accessible to its users as soon as possible.
For this reason, updates of DNS resolution data (publication) are entered into the AFNIC SRS, subsequently generated into incremented zone files, and are distributed to the authoritative DNS servers using the two following methods : 
 * Incremental updates every 10 minutes 
and 
 * Complete publication of the zone.

 ------------------------
 4.1 - Incremental updates every 10 minutes

The principle of publication by Dynamic Update (RFC 2136 and 2137) is designed to publish only the changes to the zone that have occurred since the last update. At the registry level, we have opted to propagate every 10 minutes the changes made during the last 10 minutes on all the zones managed. In this way, any changes made will naturally be published in the next 10 minutes.

 ------------------------
 4.2 - Complete publication of the zone

In addition to the publication described above, the registry’s DNS operations team produces a complete publication of all the data for all the zones once a week by running a series of computer scripts which regenerates zonefile from database, through the same validation and integrity mechanisms as dynamic publication. This is used as a training for eventual recovery measures to be triggered.

 ------------------------
 4.3 - Propagation mechanism

Whether during the publication by Dynamic Update or complete publication, the propagation mechanism is the same. The process involving the generation of the various zone files is triggered, without blocking any operation on the registration system.
These zone files are then transmitted in full to the authoritative server, via the AXFR protocol in conformance with RFC 5936. Once received and processed by the authoritative server, notifications are sent to secondary servers that will retrieve the changes in the different zones via the IXFR protocol in conformity with RFC 1995. The choice of an incremental (rather than complete) update of the zone files to the secondary servers during the dissemination process has been made to avoid sending large amounts of data to remote sites.

 ------------------------
 4.4 - Zone File Access⁄Distribution

In compliance with Specification 4, Section 2, AFNIC registry services will offer a subscription service for qualifying applicants to download a stateful copy of the TLD zone file no more than once per 24 hours period. Distribution of the zone file will occur through the ICANN authorized Centralized Zone Data Access Provider.


------------------------
5 - Dissemination of contact or other information concerning domain name registrations (Whois service)

The AFNIC RDDS (Whois) service is in direct connection with the database of the Shared Registration System and offers access to the public administrative and technical data of the TLD. Contact data associated with registrations in the SRS is accessible both on port 43 (following specifications of RFC 3912) and through web access.

Data that can be accessed through the RDDS include:
 * contact data : holder, administrative, technical, billing
 * domain data : domain name, status
 * host data : name servers, IP addresses
 * ephemeris : creation, expiration dates
 * registrar data
These data elements are fully compliant to the mapping of RFCs 5730 to 5734 and an example of standard port 43 output is given at the end of answer to Question 26 (WHOIS).

Both web and port 43 RDDS offer natively compliance with privacy law with a “restricted diffusion” flag. This option is activated through EPP (see Question 25 (EPP)) while creating or updating a contact and automatically understood by the Whois server to anonymize the data. The choice to activate restricted diffusion is made in compliance with the policy and the local rules of the TLD. 

This service is accessible both in IPv4 and IPv6. The AFNIC RDDS service access is rate limited to ensure performance in the event of extreme query volumes generated in the cases of distributed denial of service (DDOS) and⁄or RDDS data-mining activities.


------------------------
6 - Internationalized Domain Names


Based on AFNIC’s Back-end registry’s operation experience, the .ALSACE TLD will eventually allow registration of IDN domain names in full compliance with RFCs 5890 to 5893 and based on the character set described in detail in our answer to Question 44 (IDN). This feature will not be available upon launch of the TLD and shall be implemented in the future following the policies presented in detail in our answer to Question 44 (IDN). For the purpose of clarity, a brief summary of this information is presented below.
 
The list of characters includes the French language as well as several other regional languages in use in France : Occitan, Breton, Frankish, Reunion Creole, Catalan, Corsican and Guadeloupe Creole. The list consists of some of the characters of the Latin1 standard (ISO-8859-1) and the Latin9 standard (ISO-8859-15), respectively in Unicode Latin-1 Supplement and Latin Extended-A blocks.
 
Each domain name registration is autonomous : the registration of an ASCII domain name and the registration of one of its diacritic variants are independent. The actual registered domain name is the only one to be effectively registered and published by the Whois and DNS Services.
 
However, the registration of a given ASCII or IDN domain name leads to a default preference to its registrant (original registrant) for the subsequent registration of any of its diacritics variants. Any of these variants can be registered normally by the original registrant at any time. Other registrants are required to request a specific authorization code delivered by the Registry Operator before they can proceed to the registration of such names. This policy applies whether the original registrant initially applies for an ASCII domain name or a diacritic variant of that ASCII domain name. In the latter case, the ASCII name is subject to the same preference policy than the other diacritic variants of the domain name.


------------------------
7 - DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC).
 
AFNIC registry services fully support DNSSEC and will sign the .ALSACE TLD zone from initiation into the root servers. 

 ------------------------
 7.1 - Registrar Services

Operations are available for registrars through EPP with the SecDNS EPP extension version 1.1 exclusively (as defined in RFC 5910) or through registrars extranet (with a web form). Among the two interfaces defined in the RFC 5910, AFNIC chose the “dsData” interface : domain names keys are solely under registrars management and are not exchanged, only the keys hashes (DS records) are sent by the registrars to the registry back-end service provider. Each domain name can be associated to 6 distinct key materials at most.

Zonecheck : A complementary monitoring and validation service.
AFNIC notes that “Zonecheck” is a DNS monitoring and validation service that is outside standard registry services and could be offered by third parties other than a Registry Operator. In respect of DNSSEC monitoring, each change of DS data related to a domain name is verified by the AFNIC ZoneCheck tool, out of band of standard EPP registry functions. Registrar are notified via email of detected errors. This helps Registrars ensure the DNSSEC validation will operate correctly, for example by avoiding the “Security Lameness” scenario outlined in section 4.4.3 of RFC 4641. 

Registrar transfer by default removes DS data from the zonefile. This is done to cover cases when a current signed domain names goes from a DNSSEC enabled registrar to another registrar that is not yet prepared to handle DNSSEC materials (the registrar can also be the DNS hoster or not, but in both cases DS data of the domain name has to flow from the registrar to the registry, hence the registrar must have the technical capabilities to do so).

 ------------------------
 7.2 - Signing Activity


Each public-facing DNS server operated by AFNIC or through its anycast providers is fully DNSSEC enabled through RFC 4033, 4034, and 4035 by virtue of using standard open source software (BIND & NSD) that are developed according to these RFCs.

Each zone uses a standard Key Signing Key (KSK)⁄Zone Signing Key (ZSK) split (as defined in RFC 4641, section 3.1), which enables longer KSKs and frequent re-signing of zone content to deter DNSSEC-related brute force attacks and to make sure that keys rollovers are part of registry staff operational habits. All keys are created using RSA algorithms, as defined in RFC 4641 section 3.4 : KSKs are 2048 bits long (as recommended for “high value domains” in section 3.5 of RFC 4641), and ZSKs are 1024 bits. Algorithm SHA-256 (as defined in RFC 4509) is used for DS generations. Signatures of zone resources records are done using SHA-2 and more specifically RSA⁄SHA-256 as defined by RFC 5702.

Each zone has its set of dedicated KSKs and ZSKs: one of each is active at all time, while a second of each is ready to be used at next rollover. A third ZSK may be kept in the zone after being inactive (not used any more for signing) to ease transitions and make sure DNS caches can still use it to verify old resource records signatures. Following recommendations in section 4.1.1 “Time considerations” of RFC 4641, with a zone maximum TTL being 2 days and a zone minimum TTL of 1.5 hour, ZSK rollovers are done each 2 months, KSK rollovers are done each 2 years. Their expirations are monitored. Rollovers are operated according to the “Pre-Publish Key Rollover” procedure detailed in section 4.2.1.1 of RFC 4641.

1 year worth of key materials is generated in advance. Encrypted backup of keys is made on Hardware Security Module (HSM) cards (Storage Master Key), which are securely stored physically.
 

------------------------
8 - Other relevant services

 ------------------------
 8.1 - Security and Redundancy

AFNIC maintains primary and secondary datacenter locations as well as redundant key personal operating locations. High availability of AFNIC Registry infrastructure is provided through the implementation of either load‐balancing, or fail­‐over capacity in various layers of the architecture. It also enables fast scalability through expertise in virtualization technologies. AFNIC’s infrastructure is globally virtualized apart from services requiring very high performance rate and⁄or specific access to dedicated CPU for demanding computation such as DNSSEC zone signing or databases.
AFNIC maintains robust secure policies, protocols and third party testing and certification of security measures and practises. Systems involved in the AFNIC registry services used standard multi-factor authentication, high encryption transmission of data and are kept current with industry advancement in security technologies and best practices in prevention of data breaches. Registry systems follow standard EPP practices including required passphrases associated with each domain object and the use of those passphrases to successfully negotiate and verify domain transfers. Registrars are networked source restricted (2 IP addresses authorized by registrar) for SRS access in addition to the use of digital certificates and contact to Customer Service is restricted to registered Registrar personnel only (identified by personal passphrases⁄credentials listed on file).
 
 ------------------------
 8.2 - Consensus Policy Compliance

AFNIC registry services will fully comply with Specification 1 of the Application Guidebook, below is a list of current consensus policies that have cause and effect on the systems of a registry operator. This list will be updated from time to time as per the ICANN process and the AFNIC registry services will be adjusted to maintain and support full compliance.
 
 * Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (adopted by ICANN Board 26 August 1999; form of implementation documents approved 24 October 1999).
 * Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy (effective on 12 November 2004, adopted by ICANN Board 25 April 2003; implementation documents issued 13 July 2004).
 * Registry Services Evaluation Policy (effective on 15 August 2006, adopted by ICANN Board 8 November 2005; implementation documents posted 25 July 2006)
 * AGP Limits Policy (effective on 1 April 2009, adopted by ICANN Board on 26 June 2008; implementation documents posted 17 December 2008)

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Shared Registration System (SRS) architecture
3 - SRS architecture diagram
4 - Detailed infrastructure
5 - Rate limitation
6 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems
7 - Performance and scalability
8 - Resources
 8.1 - Initial implementation
 8.2 - On-going maintenance


------------------------
1 - Global description

This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.

As one of the critical registry functions, the SRS is part of the core of AFNIC back-end registry solution as deployed to fit the needs of the .ALSACE TLD.
It both provides services for registrars and generates the data used for DNS publication and resolution service. In that aspect, it is responsible for most of the SLA’s to be respected. The following description will provide full and detailed description of the architecture of the SRS both from an application and from an infrastructure point of view.
This architecture is the same as the one used in production by AFNIC to operate .fr zone and has been fully functional for the last 15 years, with the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the management of a few thousands domain names in operations to over 2 million in late 2011.


------------------------
2 - Shared Registration System (SRS) architecture

AFNIC SRS is based on a three-layer architecture : front-end, business logic, middleware.
These three layers are supported by the data layer which is described in detail in Question 33 (Database Capabilities).
 
= Front end : Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and extranet =

The automated front-end of the SRS is EPP. 
The EPP interface and implementation complies with RFCs 3735 and 5730-5734. It is itself described in detail in Question 25 (EPP).
An extranet web interface also offers the same functions as the EPP interface.
Both theses interfaces are supported by the same middleware layer.

= Business logic : flexible policies =

The Business logic enables configurability in order to allow for the adjustment of registry systems to the chosen registry policies. Various policy-related parameters such as delay for redemption, access rate-limiting and penalties can be configured in this layer. 
The Business logic also incorporates a scheduler which provides for semi-automated processes with human validation in order to address specific policy needs which cannot or should not be fully automated.
 
= Middleware : a guaranty for evolution and scalability =

The Middleware layer guarantees a consistent and registry oriented access for all the TLD data. All registry applications operate through this layer in order to centralize object management rules. It enables access through different programming languages (Java, php and Perl in AFNIC solution) with same rules and ease of switching from one language to another in case of application refactoring or migration. 
 
= Data =

The Data layer is the structured data repository for domain, contact, operations, historization of transactions, as well as registrars and contracts data. It provides all the necessary resilient mechanisms to ensure 100% uptime and full recovery and backup.
It also provides a complete toolbox for the fine tuning of the various applications. This layer is described in more details in Question 33 (Database capacities).


------------------------
3 - SRS architecture diagram

[see attached diagram Q24_3_SRS_architecture_diagram.pdf]
Diagram : SRS architecture diagram
Description : This diagram shows global interaction between Internet, DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and private network zones. Topology of network and servers is illustrated including dedicated IP address scheme and network flows.

This diagram does not shows additional sandbox and preproduction services. These services are offered respectively for registrars and back-end developer team to stabilize developments before production delivery. They are fully iso-functional to the SRS description above.

= SRS logical diagram =

Our robust infrastructure shows dual Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity both in IPv4 and IPv6 (Jaguar and RENATER), redundant firewall and switching infrastructure. This part of the architecture is mutualised for all TLDs hosted.

The networking architecture dedicates LAN for administration, backup and production. 

Servers are hosted on different network zones : database for database, private for servers not visible on the internet and public for external servers visible on the DMZ. Dedicated zones are also set up for monitoring servers, administration servers or desktop and backup servers.
Each server is load balanced and the service is not impacted by the loss of one server, the capacity of each server being sized to be able to host the whole traffic.

Servers are fully dedicated to the .ALSACE TLD, based on a virtualized hardware infrastructure shared among up to an estimated number of 5 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= SRS physical diagram =

The IP scheme used is the following : 

2001:67c:2218:1::4:0⁄64 for IPv6 Internet homing
192.134.4.0⁄24 for Ipv4 Internet homing
 
 = Production LAN =

192.134.4.0⁄24 for public network IP range
10.1.50.0⁄24, 10.1.30.0⁄24 for private network IP ranges distributed on the zones described above.


 = Backup LAN =

172.x.y.0⁄24 : x is different on each network zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone backup LAN is 172.16.”50”.0⁄24)

 = Administration LAN =

172.z.y.0⁄24 : z is the value of x+1, x being the digit chosen for the corresponding Backup LAN in the same zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone administration LAN is 172.17.”50”.0⁄24).

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the SRS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if the database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the SRS access is automatically swapped to the new base.


------------------------
4 - Detailed infrastructure

The SRS modules play a central role in the back-end registry infrastructure. This is highlighted in terms of capacity expenditures (CAPEX) by the fact that SRS modules account for approximately 30% of the global CAPEX of the solution.

In the following description “server” will refer to either a physical or a virtual server.
Due to very fast growth of performance in storage and processors technologies, the infrastructure described below could be replaced by more powerful one available at the time of the set up for the same cost. 

It is important to note that at the applicative and system level, AFNIC’s SRS is fully dedicated to the .ALSACE TLD.

AFNIC has invested in very efficient VMWare Vsphere virtualization infrastructure. It provides a flexible approach to recovery both through quick activation of a new fresh server in case of local failure (cold standby) and through global failover to a mirrored infrastructure on another site.
This comes in addition to natural redundancy provided by the load balanced servers.

The whole SRS service is located in the primary datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity.

The Front end is hosted on two load balanced virtual servers and two load balanced reverse proxies ensuring authentication of registrars. 

The Business logic is hosted on two load balanced dedicated virtual servers. Scalability of these servers is ensured by quick resizing offered by virtualization technology if needed.

The Middleware is hosted on two load balanced dedicated virtual servers. It can be extended to any amount of servers needed to ensure performance commensurate with the amount of traffic expected. The dual use of Apache HAproxy and of a centralized lock mechanism ensure good queuing of each request in the system despite heavy load and parallelized middleware data access.

Scalability of all these servers are ensured by quick resizing offered by virtualization technology if needed.

All databases are based on Oracle technologies. The main database is replicated logically on two sites. Full local recovery processes are in place in case of loss of integrity through the Oracle redolog functions which provides full recovery by replay of historized logged requests.
 
The whole SRS service is located in the primary Tier 3 datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity. Continuity mechanisms at a datacenter level are described in Questions 34 (Geographic Diversity), 39 (Registry Continuity) and 41 (Failover testing).

The detailed list of infrastructures involved can be described as follows :

This infrastructure is designed to host up to an estimated number of 5 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= Virtual servers =

EPP proxy : 2 servers
 * Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
 * Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 500 GB

EPP service : 2 servers
 * Processor: 1 quad-core CPU
 * Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 1 TB

Business logic : 2 servers
 * Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
 * Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 500 GB

Data Gateway : 2 servers
 * Processor: 1 quad-core CPU
 * Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 1 TB

= Data storage : see Question 33 (Database Capabilities) =

= Physical server =

Rate limiting database : 1 server
 * Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
 * Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 500 GB

Back up servers, backup libraries, Web whois server : mutualized with the global registry service provider infrastructure
 
= Additionnal infrastructure =

Failover infrastructure : 6 servers
 * 1 bi-core CPU, 8 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB

Sandbox infrastructure : 6 servers
 * 1 bi-core CPU, 8 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB

Preproduction infrastructure : 1 server
 * 1 quad-core CPU, 16 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 1 TB


------------------------
5 - Rate limitation

To ensure resiliency of the SRS a rate limitation and penalty mechanisms are in place. 
Rate limitation and penalties are directly implemented on the front end server.

Access is rate limited through token-bucket algorithms with rate-limiting IP data stored on a dedicated database.
Penalties are applied as follow :
 * Any command that follows a login command is immediately executed but the next one is only taken into account 2 seconds later. The following commands are not penalized (unless they do not follow one of the limitation rules).
 * For the same domain name, the domain:check commands will not be able to follow themselves more than 2 times every 4 seconds. Beyond this rate, a 2 second penalty will be applied on the following domain:check commands (for the same domain name). For instance, it is possible to have a domain:check follow a domain:create command that already followed a first domain:check on a same domain name without any penalty.
 * On the other hand, a customer making several domain:check commands on a same domain name will need to respect a 4 second delay between the first and the third call if he wishes not to be penalized.
 * Any domain:create command on an already existing domain name induce an additional 2 seconds in the answer time of this command.
 * Any domain:info command on a domain name that is not in your portfolio and for which you do not indicate the auth_info induce an additional 1 second in the answer time of this command.

The rate limiting database is hosted on one physical dedicated physical server. This server represents no failure point as a failure of the rate limiting system doesn’t affect the service (a standard uniform limitation is then applied instead of intelligent rate limiting).


------------------------
6 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems 

= Whois (RDDS) =

The whois service will be described in detail in question 27. It is hosted on two servers directly connected to the main production database through read only API. Data updated by the SRS are immediately visible in the Whois with no further synchronisation needed. Rate limitation is applied on RDDS service to avoid any load on the database due to Whois direct access. Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the Whois Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the Whois service is automatically swapped to the new architecture.

= Back office⁄billing⁄Escrow =

Back-office, escrow and billing system is hosted on mutualized server. It operates directly on production data through the middleware layer to ensure integrity of data. These can be considered as fully synchronous applications. Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the Middleware layer Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the back office and billing service are automatically swapped to the new architecture.

= Monitoring =

Monitoring is operated through probes and agents scanning systems with a 5 minutes period. The monitoring system gets snmp data from all servers described in the SRS architecture and also from dedicated Oracle monitoring agent for the database. A specific prove for EPP simulating a full domain creation is also activated, still with the 5 minutes period.

= Dispute resolution =

Any operation on domain names triggered in the context of a dispute resolution is made through a back-office tool (see Back office)

= DNS publication =

DNS publication relies on a specific table of the production database hosted on the same oracle instance. These data are directly generated by the SRS system. Dynamic Update batches are generated at each operation. The use of theses batches for DNS Dynamic update or of the whole data for full zonefile generation are made directly from these production data. No further synchronization is needed. The detail of frequency and workflow for dns publication is described in Question 35 (DNS) and Question 32 (Architecture). Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the DNS publication Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if SRS and database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the dns publication is automatically swapped to the new architecture.


------------------------
7 - Performance and scalability

The Registry’s SRS offers high level production SLAs and derives from the branch of systems that have evolved over the last 15 years to successfully operate a set of french ccTLDs.

The Registry’s SRS is used to operate .fr, .re, .yt, .pm, .tf, .wf TLDs. It is used by more than 800 registrars in parallel managing more than 2 millions domain names.

AFNIC’s SRS is designed to meet ICANN’s Service-level requirements as specified in Specification 10 (SLA Matrix) attached to the Registry Agreement.

Actual and current average performance of AFNIC’s SRS is :
 * SRS availability : 99,4%
 * SRS session-command RTT : 400ms for 99,4% of requests
 * SRS query command RTT : 500ms 
 * SRS transform command RTT : 1,4 s on availability period
 * SRS max downtime : 2 hours⁄month

As described in Question 31 (Technical Overview) in relation to each of the phases of the TLD’s operations, the following transaction loads are expected on the SRS :
 * Launch phase : up to 300 requests⁄minute
 * Routine ongoing operations : up to 11,500 requests⁄day

The system is designed to handle up to 400,000 domain names and up to 10 requests per second.

The targeted TLD size being approximatly 12,000 domain names after 3 years of operations and the expected peak transaction rate being 300 requests per minute during the launch phase, this ensures that enough capacity is available to handle the launch phase, unexpected demand peaks, as well as rapid scalability needs.

Capacity planning indicators are set up to anticipate exceptional growth of the TLD.
Technologies used enables quick upgrade on all fields :
 * Servers : virtual resizing to add CPUs or disk space if resource is available on the production ESX servers. If not, 2 spare additional ESX servers can be brought live if additional performance is needed.
 * Database : database capacity has been greatly oversized to avoid need of replacement of this physical highly capable server. Precise capacity planning will ensure that sufficient delay will be available to acquire new server if needed. A threshold of 40% of CPU use or total storage capacity triggers alert for acquisition.
 

------------------------
8 - Resources

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skillset and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry) including specific resources set and organisation to provide 24⁄7 coverage and maintenance capacity. 
Specific workload for SRS management is detailed below.

 ------------------------
 8.1 - Initial implementation

The set up is operated on the pre-installed virtualization infrastructure. It implies actions by system, database and network administrators to create the virtual servers and install the applicative packages.

Then, developers, assisted by a team of experts and senior staff members apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Specific policy rules are configured and tested.

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.10 man.day
Network Administrator 0.10 man.day
System Administrator 0.10 man.day
Software Developer 0.40 man.day
Database Engineer 0.40 man.day
Software Engineer 0.80 man.day
DNS Expert Engineer 0.40 man.day

 ------------------------
 8.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the SRS includes integration of new policy rules, evolution of technology, bug fixing, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

Although all the defined technical profiles are needed for such on-going maintenance operations, on a regular basis, it is mainly a workload handled by monitoring and development teams for alert management and new functional developments, respectively.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 1.60 man.day
Database Administrator 0.40 man.day
Network Administrator 0.40 man.day
System Administrator 0.40 man.day
Software Developer 2.40 man.day
Database Engineer 0.20 man.day
Network Engineer 0.20 man.day
System Engineer 0.20 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Description of commands
 2.1 - Introduction
 2.2 - Global commands
 2.2.1 - session management commands ‘greeting’, ‘hello’, ‘login’, ‘logout’
 2.2.2 - poll command ‘poll’
 2.3 - domain commands
 2.3.1 - query commands ‘check’, ‘info’
 2.3.2 - transform commands
 2.4 - contact command
 2.5 - Return Codes
3 - Compliance to RFCs
 3.1 - Delivery process
 3.2 - XML validation
 3.3 - Cross checking
4 - Specific extensions
 4.1 - Specific extension : DNSSEC
 4.2 - Specific extension : IDN
 4.3 - Specific extension : Sunrise period
 4.3.1 - New objects
 4.3.2 - Command extensions
 4.3.2.1 - EPP Query Commands
 4.3.2.2 - EPP Transform Commands
 4.3.2.2.1 - EPP ʹcreateʹ Command
 4.3.2.2.2 - EPP ʹupdateʹ Command
 4.3.2.2.3 - EPP ʹdeleteʹ Command
5 - Resources
 5.1 - Initial implementation
 5.2 - On-going maintenance


------------------------
1 - Global description

This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.

The main service of the Shared Registration System (SRS) for its registrars is the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) interface. The interface has been developed and is maintained in full compliance with the relevant standards RFCs 5730-5732 and with RFCs 5910 and 3735 for the standard registration interface. Contacts are handled as described in RFC 5733. Transport is guaranteed according to RFC 5734. In addition, AFNIC’s EPP implementation is also compliant with RFCs 4034, 5730 and 5731 for DNSSEC support and with RFCs 5890 and 5891 for Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) support.
 
The EPP service is available through IPv4 and IPv6, based on a SSL certificate authentication.
No specific extension is used.

Note : Throughout the document we write the XML markups describing the EPP requests between the two characters ʹ and ʹ.

For contact management, the registry service provider uses a dedicated “Repository Identifier” for each TLD, this Repository identifier being declared to IANA prior to the launch of the TLD. It is also used as a post-extension to contact nic-handles, each contact for a given TLD being then identified by a unique code XX1234-REPID. An example of this declaration can be found for .fr extension (2008-05-10) at IANA epp repository identifier’s page :

[...]
NORID, #x004E #x004F #x0052 #x0049 #x0044 UNINETT Norid AS 2007-12-10 info&norid.no
FRNIC, #x0046 #x0052 #x004e #x0049 #x0043 AFNIC 2008-05-29 tld-tech&afnic.fr
CIRA, #x0043 #x0049 #x0052 #x0041 Canadian Internet Registration Authority 2009-07-22 info&cira.ca
[...]


------------------------
2 - Description of commands

 ------------------------
 2.1 - Introduction

The EPP interface, based on a double system of real-time answer by the server and asynchronous notifications, implements all standard operations : ‘domain:create’ (1 to 10 years), ‘domain:info’, ‘domain:checkʹ, ‘domain:transfer’, ‘domain:update’, ‘domain:renew’. Similar commands are available concerning contact objects.
The registry’s EPP server implement name servers management as domain name attributes in conformity with RFC 5732.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.1_EPP_xsd_main_schema.pdf]
Diagram : EPP xsd main schema
Description : Registry service provider SRS EPP interface is based on standard xsd schema as defined in RFC 5730.

In the following description of the commands, an example of client command and server answer has been added only for the create command as an example. All other commands work in the same way in full compliance with descriptions and schema of RFCs 5730-5734 and same examples can be found in the RFCs text.

 ------------------------
 2.2 - Global commands

 ------------------------
 2.2.1 - session management commands ‘greeting’, ‘hello’, ‘login’, ‘logout’

As all of these commands are basic and totally compliant with the IETF’s STD69 (RFCs 5730 to 5734), they have not be described again here.

Focus points are :
 * Enforcing a limit of 2 simultaneous connection per registrar (checked at login), ensuring equitable access for all registrars.
 * List of namespaces announced in ʹgreetingʹ is strictly checked in registrar ʹloginʹ command.
 * ʹhelloʹ can be used by registrars as a keepalive command, otherwise inactive sessions are closed by server after 20 minutes.

 ------------------------
 2.2.2 - poll command ʹpollʹ

For some operation on objects, notifications are added in a queue that can be read by using the ʹpollʹ command. The use of the ʹpollʹ command will retrieve the oldest message in the queue. The number of messages awaiting in the queue is indicated at each command answer with the ʹmsgQʹ element. To delete a message from the queue, the ʹpollʹ command should be used with the message number as indicated in RFC 5730.

 ------------------------
 2.3 - domain commands

 ------------------------
 2.3.1 - query commands ʹcheckʹ, ʹinfoʹ

ʹcheckʹ command allows the client to check if a domain object is available. 
ʹinfoʹ command allows the client to retrieve information on any objects (domain names or contacts) that are indicated in the command. Registrars can only use this command for objects they already manage in their portfolio. This command can also be used for domain names outside the registrar’s portfolio if the ʹauth_infoʹ code that protects the domain is given as well. 

 ------------------------
 2.3.2 - transform commands

In compliance with RFCs 5730 (commands presentation), 5731 (domain objects), 5732 (contact objects) and 5910 (DNSSEC specifications) AFNIC’s Registry solution use the following commands that allow for objects updates :

= ʹcreateʹ =

The EPP protocol (RFC 5730) allows domain name creation (RFC 5731). The registry service provider allows two types of creations: direct domain creations (with auth_info freely determined by the registrar) and domain names creation “with authorization code” (the correct auth_info value must be sent for the creation to succeed) 

Both are standard domain:create command as defined in the RFCs.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.3.2_EPP_create_command_example.pdf]
Diagram : EPP client create command and server answer example
Description : This is a standard EPP client create command following RFC 5731. Parameters sent in the following example are domain name, period of registration, registrant identifier, administrative, technical and billing identifier, and auth_info password followed by standard EPP server create command answer compliant with RFC 5731. Parameters sent in the answer are result code, message, creation and expiry date, and client and server transaction ID.

Creation “with authorization code” enables the registry service provider to manage protected names or names under specific registration conditions. An authorization code is associated to three items (the registrar, the domain name and the holder nic-handle ) and is delivered outside the automated process through a manual process defined by a specific policy rule. The registry-generated authorization code must be present in the ʹdomain:authInfoʹ item of the creation request. No registrar-computed value is permitted. 
In every case, domain creation proceeds through standard EPP command.

[see attached diagram Q25_2.3.2_SRS_authorisation_code.pdf]
Diagram : SRS authorisation code
Description : The EPP auth_info field that can usually be freely filled in by the registrar has a specific use for registration of reserved names : an authorisation_code is delivered through an out of band process and must be used in the create command for the answer to be successful.

= ʹupdateʹ =

The registry offers EPP ʹdomain:updateʹ command to :
 * update the administrative, technical, registrant contacts of a domain name
 * update the DNS and DNSsec configuration of a domain name
 * update the status of a domain name or its auth_info

This command is also used to add or delete signed delegations (DS records), through a ʹsecDNS:updateʹ extension if DNSSEC operations are wanted and if the secDNS extension was chosen by the client at login.

When requested the status of domain name is changed to “pendingUpdate”.

= ʹdeleteʹ =

The whole deletion process (including redemption grace period and pending delete) of a domain name comes with a restoration mechanism (restore). This mechanism, based on RFC 3915, is applied to the deletion operation only. 

The status of the domain name is switched to ʺpendingDeleteʺ for the total duration of the ʺredemption grace periodʺ and as long as the domain is not restored or totally deleted. 

= ʹtransferʹ =

The registry offers standard EPP ʹdomain:transferʹ command to allow a change of registrar to the registrant.

A transfer can be initiated only by an incoming registrar and using the auth_info that the registrant has given him. This standard mechanism acts as a security and associates the triggering of transfer to the acceptance of the owner of the domain.
The transfer operation can be triggered only if the domain is not protected by a clientTransferProhibited lock.

The transfer implementation follows RFC 5730 section 2.9.3.4 and its lifecycle follow the inter registrar transfer policy as revised by the ICANN in 2008.

 ------------------------
 2.4 - contact command

Postal addresses are managed as indicated in RFC 5731 with the following specific rules : only the type “loc” for postal addresses is accepted and only one element of type ʹcontact:postalInfoʹ can be indicated for the contact .

ʹdiscloseʹ parameters is implemented and enables to activate restricted publication in the RDDS.
The choice to activate restricted diffusion is made in compliance with the policy and the local rules of the TLD towards privacy law.

 ------------------------
 2.5 - Return Codes

Some operations under normal working conditions of the SRS will answer with a 1000 return code. Otherwise, two different levels of return codes have been chosen according to the two different types of problems that can happen on the SRS :
 * minor problems answer with Return code 1001 : Minor problems do not affect requests reception. This code indicates the command was taken into account but that its complete execution is delayed. The final result will be known later on and will be sent in a message placed in the notification queue of the concerned registrar(s).
 * blocking problems answer with Return code 2400 “command failed” : no operations that transform a domain name can be taken into account. 


------------------------
3 - Compliance to RFCs

The system has been launched compliant with RFCs. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that ongoing maintenance and new functional delivery stay compliant with RFCs.

 ------------------------
 3.1 - Delivery process

The SRS evolutions are developed on the development environment.
The development process implies strict coding rules and use of shared best practices. Pair programming is standard practice. Unit test are developed prior to function development to ensure resiliency of the produced code. 

Delivery process take place in four steps :
 * 1st step : XML validation and RFC compliance is checked through automated tools. A 100% compliance signal must be received to be able to proceed to second step.
 * 2nd step : delivery to the pre-production environment. The development is delivered on the preproduction environment. This environment is available for internal testing team. They proceed through a standard Operational Test which goes through a full lifecycle of a domain name. Specific tests are made on new functions in any.
 * 3rd step : delivery to the sandbox environment. This sandbox environment is opened for registrar where they have two accounts to validate their clients before production activation.
 * 4th step : the new release is delivered in production.

 ------------------------
 3.2 - XML validation

EPP RFC compliance is reached through three mechanisms :
 * a batch of unitary tests on each operation, each answer of the server being validated through the XSD schema.
 * XML validation through perl XML::LibXML::Schema library
 * fuzzy testing, by sending garbage input and checking error return codes.

 ------------------------
 3.3 - Cross checking

EPP cross checking partnership is established with .at Registry operator to validate in sandbox environment prior to delivery in production through mutual agreement.


------------------------
4 - Specific extensions

 ------------------------
 4.1 - Specific extension : DNSSEC

The EPP server provides the secDNS-1-1 extension as described in RFC 5910. Implementation specifications are as follows :
 * The server only supports “the DS data interface” (ʹsecDNS:dsDataʹ); section 4.1 of RFC 5910, without information on the associated key (the ʹsecDNS:keyDataʹ element is not included); if information on the key is indicated the server will answer with a 2102 error code.
 * DNSSEC elements are only accepted during an update operation request. If included during a create operation the server will answer with a 2103 error code.
 * Each domain name can have up to 6 associated DS records : the number of elements ʹsecDNS:dsDataʹ present in the ʹsecDNS:addʹ section during an update operation is therefore limited in order to have the domain name’s final status with no more than 6 DS records.
 * The maxSigLife attribute is not supported, its presence inside a client request will generate a 2102 error code.
 * The urgent attribute is not supported, its presence inside a client request will generate a 2102 error code.

[see attached diagram Q25_4.1_EPP_xsd_dnssec_extension_schema.pdf]
Diagram : EPP xsd dnssec extension schema
Description : Registry service provider DNSsec EPP secDNS-1-1 extension is based on standard xsd schema as defined in RFC 5910.

 ------------------------
 4.2 - Specific extension : IDN

No specific IDN extension has been used. The script used for the TLD is declared in the greetings and no further indication is needed in the following transaction. Usage is in full compliance with RFCs 5890, 5891, 5892, 5893, and 5894. This may be a pending situation : if a standard IDN extension was to be produced in the months to come it would be added to the EPP schema in order to deal more precisely with each specific language management policies.

 ----------------------
 4.3. Specific extension : Sunrise period

Sunrise period is managed through a specific EPP extension. The sunrise registration workflow is described in Question 29 (Right Protection Mechanism).

The extension used is described below but will follow work in progress at the IETF initiated by Cloud Registry (draft-tan-epp-launchphase-01.txt). The xsd schema has been designed by AFNIC’s partner CORE and is fully in accordance with the draft. It could be modified before the launch if the IETF draft was to be accepted as an RFC with modifications.

AFNIC Registry extension is fully compatible with extension mechanism described in RFC 5730. It offers trademark holders a specific mapping to provide information related to trademarks. It also enables query function to keep the sunrise process transparent to everybody.

For illustration and further information purposes, please refer to the Q25_4.3_EPP_xsd_sunrise_extension_schema.pdf file attached (EPP XSD sunrise extension schema) which describes the registry back-end services provider’s EPP extension XSD schema used to deal with sunrise period. This schema is designed based on the work in progress at IETF, as initiated by Cloud Registry (draft-tan-epp-launchphase-01.txt). This extension is fully compatible with extension mechanism described in RFC 5730.

 ----------------------
 4.3.1 New objects 

application : to deal with multiple demands on same domain name. The server creates an application object corresponding to the request and assigns an identifier for the application and returns it to the client. This mapping defines an ʹlp:applicationIDʹ element which is used to specify an ID to this object.

phase : optional element ʹlp:phaseʹ to be used in case of multiple sunrise phases.

status : status of each application in link with internal state of the process of the application. The ʹlp:statusʹ values that can be used in order to process the applications are pending, invalid, validated, allocated, rejected. These statuses have to be mapped with the sunrise workflow described in Question 29 (Right Protection Mechanism).

claim : claim object contains the details needed to applicantʹs prior right to the domain name.
The ʹlp:claimʹ element has the boolean ʺpreValidatedʺ attribute, which indicates whether a third party validation agency has already validated the claim in case of inter connection with the IP clearing house.

Several child elements of the ʹlp:claimʹ element are defined :
 * ʹlp:pvrcʹ, the Pre-Validation Result Code, is a string issued by a third-party validation agent. 
 * ʹlp:claimIssuerʹ contains the ID of a contact object (as described in RFC 5733) identifying the contact information of the authority which issued the right (for example, a trade mark office or company registration bureau).
 * ʹlp:claimNameʹ identifies the text string in which the applicant is claiming a prior right.
 * ʹlp:claimNumberʹ contains the registration number of the right (i.e. trademark number or company registration number).
 * ʹlp:claimTypeʹ indicates the type of claim being made (e.g. trademark, symbol, combined mark,
company name).
 * ʹlp:claimEntitlementʹ indicates the applicantʹs entitlement to the claim (i.e. owner or licensee). 
 * ʹlp:claimRegDateʹ contains the date of registration of the claim.
 * ʹlp:claimExDateʹ contains the date of expiration of the claim.
 * ʹlp:claimCountryʹ indicates the country in which the claim is valid.
 * ʹlp:claimRegionʹ indicates the name of a city, state, province or other geographic region in which the claim is valid. This may be a two-character code from WIPO standard ST.3.

 ----------------------
 4.3.2 command extensions

 ----------------------
 4.3.2.1 EPP Query Commands

ʹinfoʹ command is the only extended query command.

In order to indicate that the query is meant for an application object, an ʹlp:infoʹ element is sent along with the regular ʹinfoʹ domain command.

The ʹlp:infoʹ element contains the following child elements :
 * ʹlp:applicationIDʹ, the application identifier for which the client wishes to query, and ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional), the phase the application is associated with.
If the query was successful, the server replies with an ʹlp:infDataʹ element along with the regular EPP ʹresDataʹ. The ʹlp:infData contains the following child elements:
 * ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier of the returned application.
 * ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.
 * ʹlp:statusʹ (optional) status of the application.
 * ʹlp:claimʹ (optional) one or more ʹlp:claimʹ elements.
If present, the ʹlp:claimʹ elements may contain the child elements as described above in the claim object description.

 ----------------------
 4.3.2.2 EPP Transform Commands

There are three extended EPP transform commands : ʹcreateʹ, ʹdeleteʹ and ʹrenewʹ 

 ----------------------
 4.3.2.2.1 EPP ʹcreateʹ Command

The EPP ʹcreateʹ command is used to create an application. Additional information is required to submit a domain name application during a launch phase :
 * ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional), the phase the application should be associated with 
 * ʹlp:claimʹ (optional) elements to substantiate the prior rights of the applicant.

When such a ʹcreateʹ command has been processed successfully, the EPP ʹextensionʹ element in the response contains a child ʹlp:creDataʹ element that identifies the registry launchphase namespace and the location of the registry launchphase schema. The ʹlp:creDataʹ element contains a child ʹlp:applicationIDʹ element, which informs the registrar about the application ID the server has assigned.

 ----------------------
 4.3.2.2.2 EPP ʹupdateʹ Command

This extension defines additional elements to extend the EPP ʹupdateʹ command to be used in conjunction with the domain name mapping.
Registry policies permitting, clients may update an application object by submitting an EPP ʹupdateʹ command along with an ʹlp:updateʹ element to indicate the application object to be updated.
The ʹlp:updateʹ element contains the following child elements:
 * ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier for which the client wishes to update.
 * ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.

 ----------------------
 4.3.2.2.3 EPP ʹdeleteʹ Command

Registry policies permitting, clients may withdraw an application by submitting an EPP ʹdeleteʹ command along with an ʹlp:deleteʹ element to indicate the application object to be deleted. The ʹlp:deleteʹ element contains the following child elements:
 * ʹlp:applicationIDʹ the application identifier for which the client wishes to delete.
 * ʹlp:phaseʹ (optional) the phase during which the application was submitted or is associated with.


------------------------
5 - Resources

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skill set and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry) including specific resources set and organisation to provide 24⁄7 coverage and maintenance capacity. 
Specific workload for EPP management is detailed below.

 ------------------------
 5.1 - Initial implementation

The set up is operated on the pre-installed virtualization infrastructure. It implies actions by system, database and network administrators to create the virtual servers and install the applicative packages.

Then, developers, assisted by a senior staff member expert in internet technologies and RFCs apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Compliance is strictly tested.
 
The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.10 man.day
Network Administrator 0.10 man.day
System Administrator 0.10 man.day
Software Developer 0.40 man.day
Software Engineer 0.80 man.day

 ------------------------
 5.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the SRS includes integration of new policy rules, evolution of technology, bug fixing, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

Although all the defined technical profiles are needed for such on-going maintenance operations, on a regular basis, it is mainly a workload handled by monitoring and development teams for alert management, new functional developments and RFC compliance checks, respectively.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 0.80 man.day
System Administrator 0.40 man.day
Software Developer 1.60 man.day
Software Engineer 0.40 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - General description
2 - Data access
 2.1 Typology of accessible data
 2.2 Profiles for data access control
3 - RDDS architecture
4 - RDDS infrastructure
5 - Rate limitation
6 - Reverse lookups
7 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems
8 - Performance and scalability
9 - ICANN Bulk access compliance
10 - RFC compliance
11 - Resources
 11.1 - Initial implementation
 11.2 - On-going maintenance


------------------------
1 - General description

This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.

Registration Data Directory Service (RDDS) is one of the five vital functions of the Registry.
The main focus will be made on Whois on port 43 following RFC 3912 which is the main point of access.
The web Whois offers similar functionalities, is based on the same architecture and will be presented through screenshots.

The following description will provide full and detailed description of the architecture of the RDDS both from an application and from an infrastructure point of view.
This architecture is the same as the one used in production by AFNIC for .FR zone and has been fully functional for the last 15 years, with the ability to meet stringent SLAs as well as to scale from the management of a few thousands domain names in operations to over 2 million in late 2011.


------------------------
2 - Data access

When considering the data access services, we must address :
 * the typology of accessible data
 * access control : who can access what kind of data
 * performance : guarantee of availability and performance for requesting data

Potential limitations to the systems will also be described. 
To be able to maintain a good access to everybody (registrar, holders, outside world), our back-end solution provides multiple access with consistent role and access policies.

 ------------------------
 2.1 Typology of accessible data

Data that can be accessed through the RDDS are mainly :
 * contact data : holder, administrative, technical, billing
 * domain data : domain name, status
 * host data : name servers, IP addresses
 * ephemeris : creation, expiration dates
 * registrar data

These data are all described in the RFCs and fully compliant to the mapping of RFCs 5730 to 5734 and an example of standard port 43 output is given at the end of the present answer.

 ------------------------
 2.2 Profiles for data access control

= Whois for registrars =

The main registrar access tool is our RDDS service accessible both on port 43 following specifications of RFC 3912 and through web access. 
Both web and port 43 RDDS offer natively compliance with privacy law with a “restricted disclosure” flag if needed by the TLD. This option is activated through Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) standard ʹdiscloseʹ parameters while creating or updating a contact and automatically understood by the whois server to anonymize the data.
This service is accessible both in IPv4 and IPv6.
RDDS access for registrar is rate limited to ensure performance. (see performance)

= Public whois =

RDDS access is also available on port 43 to everybody through a rate limited access to ensure performance. (see performance)

= Legal requirements =

AFNIC back end solution implements by default French privacy laws with opt-out holder personal data privacy.
This option can be deactivated if necessary to be compliant with the policy of the TLD.


------------------------
3 - RDDS architecture

= RDDS architecture =

RDDS is running on two load balanced front virtual servers directly connected to two databases : the production database for data access, and a rate-limiting service database which applies rate-limiting policies and store IP involved. This server implements token bucket algorithm to flatten traffic on the server.

The two front servers are load balanced using classical round robin implementation.

The network infrastructure is the same as described in the global architecture (referred to below) and no specific dedicated switch or router is to be considered as the rate limiting tool is an applicative one. A global description of the network infrastructure (switch and routers involved) can be found in answers to Question 32 (Architecture).

[see attached diagram Q26_3_RDDS_architecture_diagram.pdf]
Diagram : RDDS architecture diagram
Description : This diagram shows global interaction between Internet, DMZ and private network zones. Topology of network and servers is illustrated including dedicated IP address scheme and network flows.

= RDDS logical diagram =

Our robust infrastructure shows dual Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity both in Ipv4 and Ipv6 (Jaguar and RENATER), redundant firewall and switching infrastructure. This part of the architecture is mutualized for all TLDs hosted.

The networking architecture dedicates LAN for administration, backup and production.

Servers are hosted on different network zones : database for database, private for servers not visible on the internet and public for external servers visible on the DMZ. Dedicated zones are also set up for monitoring servers, administration servers or desktop and backup servers.
RDDS servers are directly on the public zone.
Each server is load balanced and the service is not impacted by the loss of one server, the capacity of each server being sized to be able to host the whole traffic.

Servers are fully dedicated to the .ALSACE TLD, based on a virtualized hardware infrastructure shared among up to an estimated number of 5 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= RDDS physical diagram =

The IP scheme used is the following :

2001:67c:2218:1::4:0⁄64 for IPv6 Internet homing
192.134.4.0⁄24 for Ipv4 Internet homing

Production LAN
192.134.4.0⁄24 for public network IP range
10.1.50.0⁄24, 10.1.30.0⁄24 for private network IP ranges distributed on the zones described above.

Backup LAN
172.x.y.0⁄24 : x is a different on each network zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone backup LAN is 172.16.”50”.0⁄24)

Administration LAN
172.z.y.0⁄24 : z is the value of x+1, x being the digit chosen for the corresponding Backup LAN in the same zone. y is fixed to the value of the associated production LAN in the same zone (for example Private zone production LAN being 10.1.”50”.0⁄24, Private zone administration LAN is 172.17.”50”.0⁄24)

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the RDDS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if the database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) access is automatically swapped to the new base.


------------------------
4 - RDDS infrastructure

In the following description “server” will refer to either a physical or a virtual server.
Due to very fast growth of performance in storage and processors technologies, the infrastructure described below could be replaced by more powerful one available at the time of the set up for the same cost.

It is important to note that at the applicative and system level, AFNIC’s SRS is fully dedicated to the .ALSACE TLD.

AFNIC has invested in very efficient VMWare Vsphere virtualization infrastructure. It provides a flexible approach to recovery both through quick activation of a new fresh server in case of local failure (cold standby) and through global failover to a mirrored infrastructure on another site.
This comes in addition to natural redundancy provided by the load balanced servers.

The RDDS is therefore hosted on virtualized infrastructure on the public zone (Demilitarized Zone - MZ) to the exception of the database, which presents very high rate of I⁄O (Input⁄Output), and is hosted on a dedicated physical infrastructure on the private zone.

The rate limiting database is hosted on one physical dedicated physical server. This server represents no failure point as a failure of the rate limiting system doesn’t affect the service (a standard uniform limitation is then applied instead of intelligent rate limiting).
The main database is the production database also used by the SRS and other registry vital functions and is described more in detail in Question 33 (Database Capabilities).

Databases are based on Oracle technologies. The main database is replicated logically on two sites. Full local recovery processes are in place in case of loss of integrity through the Oracle redolog functions which provides full recovery by replay of historized logged requests.

The whole RDDS service is located in the primary Tier 3 datacenter used by AFNIC in production, the 
secondary datacenter serves as failover capacity. Continuity mechanisms at a datacenter level are described in Questions 34 (Geographic Diversity), 39 (Registry Continuity) and 41 (Failover testing).

The detailed list of infrastructures involved can be described as follows :

This infrastructure is designed to host up to an estimated number of 5 TLDs of comparable scale and use case.

= Virtual servers =

RDDS server : 2 servers
 * Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
 * Main memory: 16 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 500 GB

= Data storage : see Question 33 (Database Capabilities) =

= Physical server =

Rate limiting database : 1 server
 * Processor: 1 bi-core CPU
 * Main memory: 8 GB of RAM
 * Operating system: RedHat RHEL 6
 * Disk space: 500 GB

Back up servers, backup libraries, Web whois server : mutualized with the global registry service provider infrastructure

= Additionnal infrastructure =

Failover, sandbox, preproduction infrastructure : 3 servers
 * 1 bi-core CPU, 16 GB of RAM, RedHat RHEL 6, 500 GB


------------------------
5 - Rate limitation

To ensure resiliency of the RDDS a rate limitation mechanism is in place.
RDDS is largely used by various public users and registrars, some of them for domain name drop catching. Potentiality of heavy load on this service is very high.
Therefore a rate limitation is applied with threshold calculated from the level of activity expected in order not to penalize normal use of the service. A double level mechanism enables different threshold for identified IP (white list) from registrar and for the public access.

Rate limitation is directly implemented on the front end server.

Access is rate limited through token-bucket algorithms with rate-limiting IP data stored on a dedicated database.
Penalties are applied as follow :
 * any IP : 7,200 request ⁄ 24 hour ⁄ IP. 
 * white listed IP for registrars : 86,400 requests⁄ 24 hour ⁄IP. 


------------------------
6 - Reverse lookups

The web RDDS access offers advanced searchability capacities.
The following functions are available :

= Direct queries =

 * Partial match query on domain name, administrative, technical, and billing contact name and address, registrant name and address, registrar name including all the sub-fields described in EPP (e.g., street, city, state or province, etc.).
 * Exact match query on registrar id, name server name, and name server’s IP glue records
The result of direct queries is the object queried (contact, domain, ...)

= Reverse queries =

 * Partial match query on domain name, administrative, technical, and billing contact name and address, registrant name and address, registrar name including all the sub-fields described in EPP (e.g., street, city, state or province, etc.).
 * Exact match query on registrar id, name server name, and name server’s IP glue records including IPv6 queries.
The result of reverse queries is the list of objects of a given type linked with the result object (list of domains with a given contact result, or name server result,...)

This powerful tool is limited in access :
 * Captcha system avoids scripting of the interface.
 * Direct queries are open to every user but the number of result objects is limited to 1,000 answers for 1 query.
 * Reverse queries can only be done by registrars on the extranet interface, and the number of result objects is limited to 10,000 answers for 1 query. The interface cannot be used more than 100 times a day.


------------------------
7 - Interconnectivity and synchronization with other systems

= SRS =

Data updated by the SRS are immediately visible in the RDDS with no further synchronisation needed. Rate limitation is applied both on SRS and RDDS service to avoid any load on the database. SRS and RDDS are partly in the same network zone, both RDDS servers and EPP SSL reverse proxies being in the public network zone (DMZ).

= Main database =

Hot standby of the production database is automatically taken into account by the RDDS Oracle Transparent Network Substrate configuration. Therefore if database are migrated in hot standby due to failure of part of the system, the RDDS service is automatically swapped to the new architecture. 

= Rate limiting database =

No standby is implemented on the rate-limiting database. In case of failure, a standard global limitation is applied while, replacement of the database is operated.

= Monitoring =

Monitoring is operated through probes and agents scanning systems with a 5 minutes period. The monitoring system gets snmp data from all servers described in the RDDS architecture and also from dedicated Oracle monitoring agent for the database.
Hot standby is not implemented on monitoring agents. 


------------------------
8 - Performance and scalability

The Registry’s RDDS offers high level production SLAs and derives from the branch of systems that have evolved over the last 12 years to successfully operate a set of french ccTLDs.

The Registry’s RDDS is used to publish .fr, .re, .yt, .pm, .tf, .wf TLDs information. It is used by more than 800 registrars in parallel managing more than 2 millions domain names and by a large user community.

AFNIC’s RDDS is designed to meet ICANN’s Service-level requirements as specified in Specification 10 (SLA Matrix) attached to the Registry Agreement.

As described in Question 31 (Technical Overview) in relation to each of the phases of the TLD’s operations, the following transaction loads are expected on the WHOIS servers :
 * launch phase (including sunrise if applicable) : up to 540 requests⁄minute peak
 * routine on going operations : up to 20,700 requests⁄day

It can serve up to 12,000 requests⁄min on load balanced service to be compatible with the launch and growth scenario described in Question 31 (Technical Overview).
 
The targeted TLD objective being around 12,000 domain names with a provision for up to 540 requests per minutes during the launch phase, this ensures that enough capacity is available to handle the launching period, as well as demand peaks and unexpected overhead.

Capacity planning indicators are set up to anticipate exceptional growth of the TLD.
Technologies used enables quick upgrade on all fields :
 * Servers : virtual resizing to add CPUs or disk space if resource is available on the production ESX servers. If not, 2 spare additional ESX servers can be brought live if additional performance is needed.
 * Servers (alternate) : additional servers can be added and taken into account immediately through dns round robin algorithm.
 * Database : database capacity has been greatly oversized to avoid need of replacement of this physical powerful server. Precise capacity planning will ensure that sufficient delay will be available to acquire new server if needed. A threshold of 40% of CPU use or total storage capacity triggers alert for acquisition.


------------------------
9 - ICANN Bulk access compliance

The Registry Operator will provide both data escrow and ICANN bulk access in a same process.
Data escrow generates data on a daily basis. One file per week is kept for ICANN access to bulk data.


------------------------
10 - RFC compliance

The system has been launched compliant with RFCs. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that on going maintenance and new functional delivery stay compliant with RFCs.

= Delivery process =

The RDDS evolutions are developed on the development environment.
The development process implies strict coding rules and use of shared best practices. Pair programming is standard practice. Unit test are developed prior to function development to ensure resiliency of the produced code.

Delivery process take place in four steps :
 * 1st step : RDDS validation and RFC compliance is checked through automated tools. A 100% compliance signal must be received to be able to proceed to second step.
 * 2nd step : delivery to the pre-production environment. The development is delivered on the preproduction environment. This environment is available for internal testing team. 
 * 3rd step : delivery to the sandbox environment. This sandbox environment is opened for registrar where they have two accounts to validate their clients before production activation.
 * 4th step : the new release is delivered in production.

= Format validation =

RDDS rfc compliance is reached through a specific RDDS checker which is use for non-regression test before each new release. 

= Cross checking =

Whois cross checking partnership is established with .at Registry operator to validate in sandbox environment prior to delivery in production through mutual agreement.

= Whois Output =

Output of a whois query is 100% similar to the whois query example available in RFC 3912.


------------------------
11 - Resources

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skillset and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry) including specific resources set and organisation to provide 24⁄7 coverage and maintenance capacity.
Specific workload for RDDS management is detailed below.

 ------------------------
 11.1 - Initial implementation

The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Database Administrator 0.10 man.day
Network Administrator 0.10 man.day
System Administrator 0.10 man.day
Software Developer 0.40 man.day
Software Engineer 0.20 man.day

 ------------------------
 11.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the RDDS module includes mainly integration of new policy rules, privacy law evolutions, evolution of contracts, infrastructure evolution, failover testing.

Although all the defined technical profiles are needed for such on-going maintenance operations, on a regular basis, it is mainly a workload handled by monitoring and development teams for alert management and new functional developments, respectively.

The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Operations Specialist 0.60 man.day
System Administrator 0.20 man.day
Software Developer 0.80 man.day
Software Engineer 0.40 man.day

Table of Contents

1 - Global description
2 - Data associated with a domain name
 2.1 - Technical data
 2.2 - Administrative data
3 - Full domain name lifecycle overview
4 - Basic create⁄update⁄delete life cycle
 4.1 - create
 4.2 - update
 4.2.1 - technical update
 4.2.2 - administrative update
 4.2.3 - context update
 4.3 - delete⁄restore
5 - Transfer
6 - Renewal and auto-renewal
7 - Grace period and refund
8 - Resources allocated
 8.1 - Initial implementation
 8.2 - On-going maintenance


------------------------
1 - Global description

This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.

Domain names represents the core technical part of the Domain Name System. The lifecycle of a domain name can have both technical impacts, when it relates to technical data associated with the domain name, and administrative impact when related to the registrant of the domain name.

The following diagrams and descriptions will bring detailed answers to the question of the lifecycle of the domain name in regards to both these aspects 


------------------------
2 - Data associated with a domain name

To clearly understand the lifecycle of the domain name, we must first give an exhaustive description of the data involved in the various operations to be made.
 
 ------------------------
 2.1 - Technical data

A domain name is a technical label used for Domain name resolution. To be effective, it is associated with nameservers -server hosting the configuration of the domain name -, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses - to identify on the network servers independently of the DNS, DNSsec signature information - delegation signer and cryptographic algorithm used-.
Less directly related to the technical basic configuration are :
 * = clientHold = label : relates to the DNS or not DNS-publication status of the domain name.
 * = auth_info = : a protection code linked with the domain and used by the owner to unlock some operations
 * = client*Prohibited = : a list of status activated by the registrar to lock the domain name and prevent some operations
 * = server*Prohibited = : a list of status activated by the registry service provider to lock the domain name and prevent some operations

 ------------------------
 2.2 - Administrative data

A domain name has to be managed by his owner. Therefore it comes associated with a list of operational and administrative contacts that can be used to get in relation with the domain name owner or technical staff. The most important are administrative contact, technical contact, billing contact, and of course registrant contact. The last contact object is the registrar object which shows which registrar is in charge of domain name operations at the registry level.

Both these administrative and technical data are modified and used in the lifecycle and we will now describe this in detail.


------------------------
3 - Full domain name lifecycle overview

We have chosen to illustrate the registration lifecycle through a state diagram
This state diagram is joined as a separate file.

[see attached diagram Q27_3_global_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Global Lifecycle
Description : Considering the wide range of the states and transition, the choice has been made to present a linear scenario going through all available operations. In this scenario, impact on registrar objects, registrant objects, domain objects, host objects are described at each step. Also statuses and forbidden operations at each step are indicated.
The following domain states have been introduced to describe the lifecycle major steps :
 * registered : the domain name is registered, published in the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) but not in the DNS (clientHold label is set or there is no host information)
 * active : the domain name is registered, published in the RDDS and in the DNS
redemption : the domain name is registered, published in the RDDS but not in the DNS. It will be - deleted if no action is taken by the registrar.
 * locked : specific operations as transfer or delete have been forbidden by the registrar.
Impact on expiry dates has also been indicated though adequate formulas.

All aspects of the registration lifecycle are covered by standard Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) RFCs and the EPP implementation is described in Question 25 (EPP). 


------------------------
4 - Basic create⁄update⁄delete life cycle

The basic life cycle is described below without explanation of add grace period. The behavior of add grace period is described in chapter 7.

 ------------------------
 4.1 - create

A domain name is created through a standard EPP domain:create command.
Administrative data linked with the creation are registrant contact, admin contact and technical contact, period before renewal.
Technical data linked with the creation are nameservers host objects, IP address for glue records, auth_info code.
The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if no host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name is ACTIVE if host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.
Otherwise this operation is real time and there is no delay elements to be considered.

Elements needed to create a domain are contacts (mandatory), host objects (optional) and auth_code (mandatory).
It can then be managed through domain:update commands. 

 ------------------------
 4.2 - update

domain:update commands enables a wide range of fields updates

 ------------------------
 4.2.1 - technical update

Part of the fields of the update enables to update technical configuration. It enables nameserver, IP address, and dnssec options management. It is also used to remove a technical configuration..

The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if no host objects have been filled or have been removed.
The state of the domain name is ACTIVE if host objects have been filled.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

 ------------------------
 4.2.2 - administrative update

It is used to freely modify the various contacts linked with the domain name : administrative, technical, billing, and registrant contact.
The state of the domain name is not modified if only these fields are used.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

 ------------------------
 4.2.3 - context update

It is used by the client to modify status of the domain name and⁄or to modify the auth-info code linked with the domain name.
The status that can be changed are the following : clientHold, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited, clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited.
The clientHold flag enables to remove the domain name from publication temporarily without deleting its technical configuration.
The other client*Prohibited statuses prevent the corresponding operation to be used.
The state of the domain name is REGISTERED if status is updated to clientHOLD.
The state of the domain name is LOCKED if status is updated to clientTransferProhibited.
The state of the domain name can exceptionally be PENDING during the operation if a technical issue makes it asynchronous.

 ------------------------
 4.3 - delete⁄restore

Deletion can be used only by the registrar in charge of the domain name. It brings the domain name in Redemption grace period for a period of 30 days. It can be restored at any time during this period without any changes to the data. Deletion remove the domain name from the DNS publication service.
The state of the domain name is DELETED during redemption period.
The redemption period lasts 30 days. The domain is destroyed at the end of this period and a notification is sent.


------------------------
5 - Transfer

The transfer is described below without explanation of transfer grace period. The behavior of transfer grace period is described in chapter 7.

A transfer can be initiated only by an incoming registrar and using the auth_info that the owner has given him. This standard mechanism acts as a security and associates the triggering of transfer to the acceptance of the owner of the domain.
The transfer operation can be triggered only if the domain is not protected by a clientTransferProhibited lock.

[see attached diagram Q27_5_transfer_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Transfer lifecycle
Description : Transfer operation includes various steps with impact on both outgoing and incoming registrars.

The outgoing registrar receive a transfer notification and can technically accept or reject the registrar change. Rejection can only be done in specific cases described in ICANN consensus policies.
If the outgoing registrar accepts the transfer, the operation is accepted immediately.
If the outgoing registrar does not validate the transfer, the operation is automatically accepted after 5 days.
If the outgoing registrar rejects the transfer, the operation is automatically cancelled and both registrars are notified of the rejection.
When the transfer succeeds, both registrars are notified through their EPP notification queue.

A reverse transfer can be asked by the losing registrar. The documents and cases where this cancellation of the transfer can be asked follow ICANN consensus policies on transfers. In case of disputes, the ICANN TDRP (Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy) is followed.

The state of the domain name is PENDING during the operation.


------------------------
6 - Renewal and auto-renewal

Domain:renew command is used by the registrar to increase the period of registration. If a domain name is registered for less than 10 years it can be renewed for a period up to 10 years at any time. The expiry date is updated. 
The domain:renew command can be sent at any phase of the lifecycle (exception of add grace period is described in next chapter).

The registry lifecycle works with auto-renewal mechanisms. If a registrar do not renew or delete the name when it reaches the expiration date, a one year auto-renew period is added. As for other commands, a grace period is linked with this action (see chapter 7)

[see attached diagram Q27_6_grace_period_renew_autorenew_lifecycle.pdf]
Diagram : Grace Period renew⁄autorenew lifecycle
Description : This renew⁄autorenew lifecycle sum up impact of operations on domain name availability and statuses.


------------------------
7 - Grace period and refund

= Grace period =

The Grace Period mechanism refers to a specified period following an operation or change of status in which the operation may be reversed and a credit may be issued to the Registrar. 

= Redemption Grace Period =

The Redemption Grace Period has been described in the delete⁄restore chapter.
During this period, domain name is still registered and can be reactivated through domain:restore command. No specific refund is linked with this period.

= Create - Add Grace Period (AGP) =

The implemented AGP is a five-day period following the domain:create command of a domain name.
The Registrar may delete the domain name at any time during this period and receive a full credit for the registration fee from the Operator. Once a domain name is deleted by the registry at this stage, it is immediately available for registration by any registrant through any Registrar.

= Auto-renew Grace Period =

The auto-renew add grace period is implemented. If during this 45 days period the domain is deleted by the incoming registrar, the ʹdomain:renewʹ command is refunded.

= Renew Grace Period =

The renew grace period is implemented. If during the 5 days period following explicit renew bye the registrar, the domain name is deleted, the renew is then refunded.

= Transfer Grace Period =

The transfer grace period is implemented. If during the 5 days period following a transfer the domain is deleted, the transfer is then refunded.

= AGP Limits Policy =

If too many deletions take place during the AGP from a given registrars, a financial penalty is applied.
The Add Grace Period Limits Policy allows a registrarʹs account to be debited each month for all AGP deletions that exceed the greater of either:
 * 50 domain names, or
 * 10% of net new adds for the previous month
 

------------------------
8 - Resources allocated

Four categories of profiles are needed to run the Registry’s Technical Operations : Registry Operations Specialists (I), Registry Systems Administrators (II), Registry Software Developer (III) and Registry Expert Engineers (IV). These categories, skillset and global availability of resources have been detailed in Question 31 (Technical Overview of Proposed Registry). Specific workload for this question is detailed below.

 ------------------------
 8.1 - Initial implementation

The set up of a precise lifecycle implies actions by developers, assisted by a senior staff member expert in internet technologies and RFCs to apply proper configuration for the given TLD. Compliance is strictly tested.
 
The initial implementation effort is estimated as follows :

Software Developer 1.00 man.day
Software Engineer 1.00 man.day

 ------------------------
 8.2 - On-going maintenance

On-going maintenance on the lifecycle includes mainly integration of new policy rules.
The on-going maintenance effort per year is estimated as follows, on a yearly basis :

Software Developer 1.00 man.day
Software Engineer 1.00 man.day

Table of Contents

1. Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of General Malicious Activity
2. Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of Phishing
3. Abuse Single Point of Contact
4. Prevention of Domain Name Tasting or Domain Name Front Running
5. Prevention of Domain Name Sniping (Grabbing)
6. Prevention of Orphaned Glue Records
7. Preventing Use of Reserved, Invalid, Illegal or Otherwise Unsuitable .alsace Names
7.1 Rule Engine
7.2 Pattern matching and fuzzy string comparison
8. Domain Data Access Control
8.1 Prevention of Whois Data Mining
8.2 Prevention of Unauthorized Data Modifications
9. Whois Accuracy
10. Resources

The .alsace Registry will establish thorough and effective methods to prevent abuse of .alsace domain names, .alsace registrant data or the associated infrastructure, as well as to mitigate any impact from such abuse (should it occur despite the preventive measures). In order to achieve this, the .alsace Registry is committed to deploy extensive organizational and technical measures. The most salient examples of these measures are described below.


1. Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of General Malicious Activity

The .alsace Registry is committed to closely collaborate with law enforcement authorities and security agencies in order to take quick action in case a .alsace name is reported to be involved in malicious activity. For this purpose, a ʺRapid Takedown Policyʺ is established that :
• identifies cases of malicious activity,
• defines ways for the registry to be notified of such activity (e.g. via a dedicated web site, e-mail address or phone hotline),
• defines clear and consistent procedures to quickly stop the malicious activity (after the activity was confirmed and impact of the measures has been assessed),
• defines related service levels (e.g. with respect to the maximum time the registry may take to respond to takedown requests). This time limits will never exceed 14 business days in the case of less urgent cases, and not exceed 24 hours in the most urgent cases such as phishing.
• defines rules regarding the notification of involved parties (registrant, administrative contact, technical contact, registrar, informant),
• defines ways to appeal against any measures taken (through the general Eligibility Restrictions Dispute Resolution Procedure as is the case for all appeals against Registry decisions, but with panelists that are specilized in Security and Malicious Conducts).
• defines how cases covered by the policy need to be documented and reported. In this context, cases of malicious activity may include (but are not limited to) :
◦ wrong, invalid or harmful DNS setup (e.g. pointers to false IP addresses),
◦ use of trademarked or otherwise reserved names without proper rights,
◦ use of the domain in actions that affect the stability and security of the Internet (e.g. in Denial of Service (DoS), Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks or botnets)
◦ use of the domain for the distribution of malware (such as computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware or rootkits)
◦ use of the domain for phishing or scamming
◦ use of the domain for spamming (affecting e-mail or other forms of electronic messaging)

Where applicable, the policy includes metrics and thresholds for finding quantitative indications of malicious conduct.

Procedures to stop malicious activity may include (but are not limited to) :
• notifying the domainʹs sponsoring registrar, specifying a deadline until which the activity needs to be ceased,
• notifying the domainʹs registrant, administrative or
• technical contact directly (again specifying a deadline until which the activity needs to have ceased),
• locking the domain and putting it on hold in order to prevent changes to the domain and to remove it from the .alsace zone (ʺtakedownʺ)
• deleting the domain name and blocking it from further registration if need be. Escalation rules (defining which steps are to be taken in which order and conditions for moving on to the next, more drastic measure) are part of the policy. 

Since removing a domain name from the .alsace zone usually has serious consequences (such as rendering web sites and e-mail addresses utilizing the domain name unusable), the .alsace Registry will, in accordance with the policy, exercise extreme caution with regard to any takedown decision. 

At the same time, the .alsace Registry is aware that malicious activity potentially affects a large number of Internet users, which sometimes warrants drastic measures. The Rapid Takedown Policy aims at finding appropriate measures, taking the interests of all involved parties into consideration. The Rapid Takedown Policy will be announced to both .alsace registrars and .alsace registrants and be part of the Registry-Registrar Agreement (RRA) and the .alsace registration terms. 


2. Rapid Takedown Policy for Cases of Phishing

The .alsace Registry will work closely with French-based CERTs to develop an Anti-Phishing-specific simplified procedure. The goals will be to :
• get all 7 French CERTs (at least, but open to other CERTs) accredited as Authorized Intervenors
• develop criteria and checklist for domain names eligible for Rapid Suspension
• develop secured communications method between Authorized Intervenor and Registry, including Affidavit form

Names reported by Authorized Intervenors will be suspended in less than 4 hours. This system should expand to a global Authorized Intervenors list. In this regard, the .alsace Registry will work with the Antiphishing Working Group in order to develop and complete their proposed Accelerated Take Down proposal, which is still in beta stage.


3. Abuse Single Point of Contact 

To ensure that the .alsace Registry gets notified of any cases of abuse as quickly and as easily as possible, an area of the public web site operated by the .alsace Registry for the .alsace TLD will be dedicated to the reporting of such cases.

The respective web pages establish a single point of contact where abuse cases can be reported via a simple web form. An e-mail address and a phone number will also be provided as alternative means of communication. 

Every case reported will raise a high-priority ticket within the .alsace support staffʹs ticket system, examined immediately and treated in accordance with the Rapid Takedown Policy (and the other Compliance Procedures related to Eliigibitly and Use, and IP Claims).


4. Prevention of Domain Name Tasting or Domain Name Front Running

The life cycle of a .alsace domain name includes a 5-day Add Grace Period (AGP) during which a newly created domain name may be deleted with a refund of the domain fee. This is common practice and corresponds to the policies of almost all existing generic top level domains.

However, in the past the Add Grace Period has been abused for practices such as domain name tasting and domain name front running. 
Domain name tasting means that domains were created simply for the purpose of testing whether revenue can be generated by e.g. creating a web page with advertisements for the domain; if this was found feasible within the first few days, the domain was retained, otherwise it was deleted within the add grace period for a full refund, i.e. the domain was ʺtastedʺ for potential revenue without any payment to the registry. 
Domain name front running refers to the practice of pre-registering domain names somebody has merely expressed interest in (e.g. by searching for them on the Whois web frontend of a registrar) with the purpose of reselling the domain to that person (at an inflated price) afterwards; again, the Add Grace Period has been abused for this purpose since a registrar could do that without any cost (if the unsold domain was deleted before the end of the add grace period).

In 2008, ICANN introduced the so-called ʺAGP Limits Policyʺ (http:⁄⁄ www.icann.org⁄en⁄tlds⁄agp-policy-17dec08-en.htm) which addresses these and other issues resulting from the Add Grace Period. The .alsace TLD, will fully implement this policy by restricting Add Grace Period refunds to registrars according to the limits specified by the policy. At the end of every month, the registration systemʹs billing module will determine every registrarʹs net domain adds and check whether the add grace period refunds granted during that month exceed the permissible number according to the policy; if this is the case, additional charges to the registrarʹs account will be initiated to effectively revert the excessive refunds.

Any exemption requests by registrars, whether they were granted (as permitted by the policy) or rejected, are documented, and such documentation will be maintained and made available for review by ICANN on request. The registryʹs monthly report to ICANN will contain per-registrar information on the granted add-deletes, as well as additional columns regarding the exemption requests.

The related report columns are (with column header names in parentheses):
• number of AGP deletes (ʺdomains-deleted-graceʺ)
• number of exemption requests (ʺagp-exemption-requestsʺ)
• number of exemptions granted (ʺagp-exemptions-grantedʺ)
• number of names affected by granted exemption request (ʺagp- exempted-domainsʺ)
 

5. Prevention of Domain Name Sniping (Grabbing)

Domain name sniping (also known as ʺgrabbingʺ) is another common abuse pattern; the name refers to the practice of trying to re-register potentially interesting domain names immediately after they are deleted (sometimes by accident, or because a registrant failed to renew the domain with his registrar in time).

Starting in 2002, registries have started to implement an ICANN proposal, the so-called ʺRedemption Grace Periodʺ (RGP, http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄registrars⁄redemption-proposal-14feb02.htm). The proposal recommends to introduce a 30-day period after a nameʹs deletion during which the name is removed from the TLD zone (in order to give the registrant the chance to take notice of his nameʹs deletion) but is still eligible for being restored by the previous registrar⁄registrant. 

Supporting the RGP significantly reduces chances for domain grabbers to obtain inadvertently deleted domains, since a registrant gets 30 days to notice the mistake and restore the domain before it becomes available for re-registration.

The .alsace Registry supports the Redemption Grace Period as proposed by ICANN and implements it in full compliance with RFC 3915 (ʺDomain Registry Grace Period Mapping for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)ʺ).


6. Prevention of Orphaned Glue Records

According to the definition found in the ʺSSAC Comment on the Orphan Glue Records in the Draft Applicant Guidebookʺ (http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄ committees⁄security⁄sac048.pdf), a glue record becomes an ʺorphanʺ when the delegation point NS record (the ʺparent NS recordʺ) that references it is removed while retaining the glue record itself in the zone. Consequently, the glue record becomes ʺorphanedʺ since it no longer has a parent NS record. In such a situation, registrars and registrants usually lose administrative control over the record, and the recordʹs attribution to a certain registrar may become unclear, which makes it a potential vector for abuse.

The glue record policy in effect for the .alsace TLD avoids this situation entirely by disallowing orphan glue records altogether. This corresponds to policy #3 mentioned in section 4.3 (page 6) of the SSAC document mentioned above. The technical implementation within the Registry and its associated zone generation process ensures this by the following measures:
• A host object within the .alsace TLD (like e.g. ʺns.example.alsaceʺ) cannot exist without its parent domain (ʺexample.alsaceʺ). Any attempt to create the host ʺns.example.alsaceʺ will be rejected by the SRS if the domain ʺexample.alsaceʺ doesnʹt already exist or isnʹt sponsored by the registrar creating the host. Likewise, the domain ʺexample.alsaceʺ cannot be deleted by the registrar if subordinate hosts like ʺns.example.alsaceʺ still exist. These subordinate hosts have to be deleted before the domain may be deleted; if such hosts are used in delegations for other .alsace names, these delegations in turn have to be removed before the host may be deleted.
• If a domain name is put on hold (e.g. as a consequence of the Rapid Takedown Policy described above), this not only means that the delegation for the name itself is removed from the zone; it also means that any occurrences of NS records referencing a name server that is subordinate to the domain are also removed from other .alsace domains, along with any accompanying glue records. The same of course holds true should the domain name have to be deleted entirely by the registry.

Consequently, no glue records can exist for a certain domain in the .alsace zone after that domain is put on hold or deleted as part of abuse prevention or mitigation procedures.

It should be noted that this policy may lead to other domains (not directly involved in the abuse case) being affected by the takedown if they were delegated to a name server subordinate to the offending domain. Depending on their overall DNS architecture, such domains may become unreachable or less reachable after the delegation point is removed. While this could in theory be avoided by a less rigid orphan glue record policy, the overall benefit of adopting the strict policy described above is deemed higher than the potential damage to domains using an DNS infrastructure depending on an offending domain name.


7. Preventing Use of Reserved, Invalid, Illegal or Otherwise Unsuitable .alsace Names

As laid out in the answer to Question 29 (Rights Protection Mechanisms), the .alsace Registry takes extensive measures to protect the legal rights of others (such as trademark holders) with regard to .alsace domain names. 

In addition, the .alsace Registration System provides general means to make sure that no .alsace names are registered which are for other reasons deemed invalid, reserved, illegal, offensive or unsuitable.

7.1 Rule Engine

For the most part, this is achieved by the deployment of a complex rule engine that checks each registered name at the time of registration for compliance with a configurable set of rules. Among other things, these rules will include :
• a test to ensure that the domain name has the proper number of labels (which is two for a traditional registry that allows only second level domains to be registered),
• a test to ensure that no hyphens occur in position 3 and 4 of any of the domainʹs U-labels (to protect ʺxn--ʺ and future ACE prefixes),
• a test to disallow hyphens at the beginning or end of the name,
• a test to find ASCII characters which are neither a letter, nor a digit or a hyphen,
• a test to find invalid IDN characters, i.e. characters not contained in any of the support IDN character tables
• a test to disallow reserved geopolitical names
• a test to disallow registry reserved names
• a test to disallow ICANN reserved names
• a test to disallow otherwise reserved or unsuitable names 

For the tests checking for reserved names, custom lists of labels can be conveniently maintained by the registry to define the disallowed names for each category. 

7.2 Pattern matching and fuzzy string comparison

In addition to the pre-registration checks described above, the rule engine also supports testing registered domain names against a set of configurable string patterns, as well as for their similarity to a set of disallowed strings. The former is implemented by matching names against regular expressions, the latter by calculating the so-called ʺLevenshtein distanceʺ between the registered name and a given disallowed string (which is a measure for their similarity). 

Prior to performing any of these checks, the registered name is subjected to a number of normalizations in order to maximize its comparability; this includes the mapping of IDN characters with accents to their ASCII counterparts where feasible, the removal of hyphens and the removal of digits. If a name matches a regular expression, or if the calculated Levenshtein distance falls below a certain threshold, the name is still registered, however it is also internally flagged for review. Due to the fuzzy nature of the pattern and Levenshtein matching, a name flagged via these checks may not necessarily be invalid or illegal; this is why the flagged names need to be reviewed manually by the .alsace support staff. 

Flagged names automatically create tickets within the support teamʹs issue system, which starts a workflow that ultimately decides whether the name is permissible (in which case the flag is removed) or invalid⁄illegal (in which case the name is deleted and the registrar gets notified). 


8. Domain Data Access Control 

One important point of attack that may lead to abuse of .alsace domains and their associated data is the unauthorized or excessive access to data stored within the .alsace repository. This applies to both read access (e.g. via public interfaces such as the port 43⁄port 80 Whois) and write access (such as registrar interfaces like EPP or the web-based Control Panel). The measures taken in the .alsace TLD to properly restrict access are laid out in the following sub-sections.

8.1 Prevention of Whois Data Mining

The port 43⁄port 80 Whois interfaces grant public access to domain, host and contact data. As such they are a potential target for data mining, i.e. the retrieval of large amounts of postal or e-mail addresses for e.g. the purpose of advertising.

As explained in detail in the answer to question 26 (Whois), the Whois implementation provided by the .alsace Registration System prevents such data mining attempts, most importantly by :
• rate-limiting access to all Whois interfaces (for machines not whitelisted for unlimited access),
• requiring web interface users to pass a CAPTCHA before access is granted and
• providing full support for contact disclosure flags as specified in RFC 5733, the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Contact Mapping, giving registrants control over the contact fields they want to disclose in the Whois. In this respect, the system is configurable and allows restricting the use of EPP contact disclosure settings via rules defined by specific registry policies or legal requirements.

8.2 Prevention of Unauthorized Data Modifications

Domain data within the .alsace Registry is exclusively provisioned by registrars, i.e. registrants have no direct write access to their data within the repository; all their modifications have to be done via the registrar sponsoring the respective domain. In this constellation, registrants need to trust their registrar and will expect that the management of domain is conducted in a diligent and correct manner. This means that the registryʹs interfaces used by registrars need to be secured in order to only allow the sponsoring registrar of a domain (and nobody else) to modify domain data. 

The EPP interface provided by the .alsace Registration System does this by :
• requiring SSL⁄TLS on the transport layer,
• requiring a strong EPP password (minimum length, mandatory digits and non-alphanumerical characters),
• requiring changing the EPP password on a regular basis,
• requiring registrars to supply lists of IP addresses or subnets from which exclusive access will be granted, 
• requiring registrars to use SSL client certificates known to and trusted by the registry, thus providing an additional means of authentication beyond the EPP password.

Likewise, the web-based Control Panel:
• requires SSL⁄TLS on the transport layer,
• requires registrars to log in with a user name and password (for which the same rules regarding minimum length, mandatory digits and non- alphanumerical characters apply),
• requires changing the password on a regular basis,
• requires registrars to supply lists of IP addresses or subnets from which exclusive access will be granted,
• requires registrars to install SSL client certificates known to and trusted by the registry in their web browsers, thus providing an additional means of authentication beyond the web password. 


9. Whois Accuracy 

Since .alsace is operated as a so-called ʺthick registryʺ, the .alsace Whois displays information about the registrant, as well as the administrative, technical and billing contacts of every .alsace domain. In cases of malicious or abusive activity involving a .alsace domain, this Whois contact information usually is the first and most important source of information, e.g. for law enforcement authorities, to determine the people or organizations responsible for the domain in a timely manner. Consequently, it is deemed very important to maximize the accuracy of contact information stored in the registry repository. 

The .alsace Registry is therefore committed to take diligent measures to promote Whois accuracy, including (but not limited to) the following:
• Contact data completeness policy: While RFC 5733, the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Contact Mapping, merely requires contact data to contain a name, a city, a country code and an e-mail address for a syntactically complete EPP request, the .alsace TLD policy for contact data mandates the specification of at least one address line (street), a voice phone number and a postal code in addition. This means that, in addition to the XML schema validation conducted by the .alsace SRS for every EPP request received from the registrar (which ensures the presence of all RFC-mandated contact data), the SRS also requires these essential fields to be present and will reject requests lacking them with a ʺparameter value policy errorʺ message. The validation done by the SRS also goes beyond validating against the EPP XSDs with respect to field content. For instance, contact e-mail addresses are required to contain an ʹ@ʹ character and a valid domain name; this is not mandated by the XSDs specified in RFC 5733.
• Domain data change notifications: The .alsace Registration System can be configured (on a per-registrar basis) to automatically notify certain contacts of a domain (e.g. both the registrant and the administrative contact in order to reach multiple people concerned with the domain) after every change made to the domain (i.e. alterations of associated contacts or name servers). When enabled, this feature allows unauthorized or unintended changes to domain and contact data to be detected immediately. This functionality will however need to be deployed after consultation with .alsace registrars, since many registrars do not endorse direct communication between the registry and registrants, i.e. their customers.
• Contact data monitoring: On a regular basis, the registry will run automated plausibility audits on the contact data submitted by registrars. Using publicly available databases, contact address lines will e.g. be mapped to cities and zip codes, which are then compared to the ones provided by the registrant.
• WDRP auditing: In 2003, ICANN adopted the so-called ʺWhois Data Reminder Policyʺ (WDRP, http:⁄⁄www.icann.org⁄en⁄registrars⁄wdrp.htm) which obliges ICANN-accredited registrars to send yearly Whois data reminder notices to registrants. These notices contain the Whois data currently on file for the respective domain, as well as instructions for the registrant about ways to correct the data if required. While the .alsace Registry does not intend to replicate this reminder procedure on the registry level, it will establish an auditing process that monitors the WDRP activities of .alsace registrars to make sure that WDRP responsibilities are honoured.


10. Resources
Thanks to the experience and investment of its Registry Service Providers, the .alsace Registgry already supports the technical abuse prevention and mitigation measures above at the time of writing. No additional engineering is required for these, which means that no special developing resources will be needed. 
Continuous audits and monitoring, as well as timely reactions to reports of malicious activity will be provided by the support staff on duty at the Registry operator. 

It is estimated that 3 man days per month will be spent in this area. 

The registrarʹs priority is to protect the trademarks of local companies as well as the names of local institutions.
First, Alsace Regional Council will set up mechanisms concerning certain audiences to protect sensitive domain names. Qualifying holders will be able to register within a clearly defined framework during several sunrise periods. They will need to prove that they hold earlier rights.

Sunrise 1 concerns public entities in the Alsace Region: cities, towns, villages, groupings of municipalities, consular chambers, local institutions, universities, secondary and primary schools and inter-branch organisations.


The amount of the charge during Sunrise 1 will be €35.
Alsace Regional Council will send all entities a letter inviting them to contact their registrar if they wish to register a domain name using the .alsace extension. This letter will give details of the procedure to follow, the length of the period, instructions regarding renewal.

Sunrise 1 will last 4 months and may be extended by Alsace Regional Council if necessary (if there are too many applications, if entities are too slow to answer or if further promotion is needed).

The entity will be asked to justify its application with a letter on a headed notepaper featuring its its INSEE code (The INSEE code is a numerical indexing code used by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) to identify entities such as municipalities, Departements, overseas territories, etc.)

Note concerning domain names subject to naming conventions:
All domain names subject to the convention below are reserved for public entities on provision of proof (INSEE identifier) during the sunrise periods and during the go-live period. This gives public entities an added degree of security.


The domain names concerned are:
agglo-name.alsace for ʺagglomeration communitiesʺ (urban communities) 
cc-name.alsace for ʺcommunites of communesʺ (groupings of municipalities)
gc-name.alsace for ʹConseils Générauxʺ (Departemental councils)
mairie-name et ville-name for villages and towns
ʺnameʺ stands for the name of the ʺagglomerationʺ, the ʺcommunity of communesʺ, the Departemental Council, the name of the town or village.


Sunrise 2 is intended for Alsatian associations. It will start the day after Sunrise 1 ends and will last 3 months.
Associations will be able to register their names or abbreviation. All the eligibility criteria must be met.
The amount of the tax during Sunrise 2 will be €35.

In order to approve the application the registrar must check that the association has provided the following documents:
- a copy of the certificate of registration in the register of associations held by the Tribunal dʹInstance in Alsace.
- a letter on headed notepaper containing the stated aim of the association, its official name, the address of its registered office


Alsace is a region with plenty of associations because of historical reasons and local customs (rules and regulations of associations are not the same in Alsace and in France).
The Regional Council subsidies more than 1 200 Alsatian associations each year (or associations willing to increase the attractiveness of Alsace). All these associations will be informed by post about their dedicated sunrise period. 
All other associations will be informed through press releases already scheduled in the communication plan. The “maison des associations” (a structure helping associations) of each city will be informed by post and will receive a poster. 

Sunrise 3 is intended for companies. This phase will take place at the same time as Sunrise 2.
This period will allow companies to register their names and⁄or the exact name of the company and⁄or the logo.

The Registry will contact the TMCH(s) (Trademark Clearing House(s)) identified by the ICANN in order to inform holders about the next upcoming of their dedicated Sunrise period.

In order to register the domain name requested, companies will have to demonstrate the following status: owner, holder, licence holder (where appropriate) of the earlier right relied upon (sunrise eligibility requirements (SERs))
that the right relied upon is on the date of application, a legally valid right; and
that the evidence submitted to the registrar concerning the data consists of authentic, certified true copies of the original documents to be taken into consideration and that they provide proof of the existence earlier right relied upon, that they are complete, accurate, current and non-fraudulent. 
The amount of the tax during Sunrise 3 will be €35.

Attribution during Sunrise 1,2 and 3 will be based on the first-come, first-served rule. The first applicant being the first one to deliver online all the information and attachments required. All applications, even valid ones, arriving afterwards after will be turned down.

During the landrush period domain names will be available for registration to all legal or natural persons. This period will last 2 months.

period will be checked. For each domain name requested the registrant will have to provide:
- justify his plans with a description, at most three pages long, of what he wishes to do with the domain
- prove his location in Alsace
The charge for domain names registered during the landrush period will be increased, exceptionally, to €150. In n+1, the charge will return to €35

Domain names will be attributed at the end of the landrush period after validation by a committee set up by Alsace Regional Council whose members are managers of departments at Alsace Regional Council (communication, information systems, Alsace Trademark project group, legal department) and the gTLD project manager. The committee will not need to justify its refusals to the registrar. The registry will inform the registrar about the deliberations concerning the domain names it has processed.

In the event of multiple applications for the same domain name, the committee shall make a decision in favour of the most pertinent project and the one most consistent with the Alsace trademark objectives. If the committee is unable to decide between several compliant applications, the domain name will be put up for auction.
The registrant will be invited by e-mail to connect to a secure platform using the login and password provided by Alsace Regional Council.
This platform will enable the registrant or his authorised registrar to enter his maximum bid.

The .alsace registry will take all technical and administrative measures in order to ensure a proper and fair administration during the Sunrise, Landrush and Go-live periods. The rules for the Sunrise period will apply to all applications filed during the staggered registration period, except for domain names filed by the Alsace Region itself for itself.


The .alsace registry will have access to the ICANN accredited Trademark Clearing House databases. These databases contain information about trademark holders allowing the necessary checks to be made.

Other Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs).
The Registry will apply the Trademark Claims Service guidelines in order to inform future registrants about the trademark rights. The Trademark Claim Notice will be translated into French. Further information will be forwarded to the persons concerned (registrants, trademark holders, etc.)

Note concerning the two-letter domain names:
Applicants will not be able to register a two-letter domain name. All country codes and intergovernmental organisation codes are reserved for the entitled governments.
Alsace Regional Council will follow the WIPO directives concerning such two-letter domain names and will save them for governments wishing to register.

Role of the registrar during Sunrise:
To be accredited, the registrar must check the following points before forwarding applications to the Registry:
That all application information and documents are present and valid,
That the applicant meets the criteria for his dedicated Sunrise period,
That the applicantʹs business and personal data are valid.
That the registrar is able to forward the registryʹs inquiries to the registrant.

Dispute resolution procedure

To defend the rights of entities and trademarks, Alsace Regional Council will use all URS⁄UDRP procedures and decisions approved by the ICANN.
The Region will place online on its .alsace site all the explanations and indications regarding appeals as well as information on deliberations.

In order to help local companies to protect their trademarks and to reduce the number of UDRP procedures in favour of URSs, the Registry will encourage the companies via information visible on its website to register with the TMCH. 

Alsace Regional Council provides a dispute resolution procedure specific to disputes concerning .alsace domain names.
This procedure enables the removal or the transmission of a domain name within two months after the filing of the request. The complainant will have to pay the €250 (excluding VAT) costs of the proceedings. Alsace Regional Council will not repay the sums received, whatever the outcome of the procedure.

Alsace Regional Council disputes committee will decide each request on the sole basis of the evidence and writings provided by the two parties. No research will be undertaken by the Region regarding any disputes whatever.


The complainant must ensure before filing his compliant that it is in his interests to bring the proceedings and that the disputed domain name is liable to be detrimental to public order or morality or to infringe rights guaranteed by the Constitution or the law; or that it is liable to infringe intellectual property or personality rights, and that the holder cannot prove a legitimate interest or is acting in bad faith; or that the disputed domain name is identical or similar to that of the French Republic, a local authority or a grouping of local authorities or an institution or a national or local public service, and that the holder cannot prove a legitimate interest or is acting in bad faith.

Examples of proof could take the form of screenshots of the website relating to the disputed domain name: ʺparkingʺ pages, commercial links to competitor sites, etc.

Complaint procedure:
Open an account on the .alsace website
Identify and justify the request: evidence, remedies sought by the complainant.
Upload the documents necessary to the case
Pay online
Registration of the request
Review of the admissibility of the complaint and acceptance by the Regional Council.

Response procedure
Open an account on the .alsace website 
Identify and respond to the complaint. Justification of the registration of the domain name.
Upload the documents necessary to the case
Validation of the response
Registration of the response for examination by the Regional Council.

In the event of a dispute between a trademark and the .alsace registry
The Alsace Region will submit to the POST-DELEGATION DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE (PDDRP) to protect trademarks and will apply the decisions and sanctions taken by the Trademark PDDRP providers. Thus, the registry undertakes to respond to all complaints within the timeframe indicated, and to pay the amounts due to the Trademark PDDRP provider, where applicable.

List of Alsace Region resources available in order to deal with these problems.
The legal department of Alsace Regional Council has 4 full-time employees as well as occasionally bringing in external members, suppliers or partners of the Regional Council.
The 4 employees of the legal department will be trained in the complexities of internet domain naming. These employees are legal experts with an in-depth knowledge of industrial and intellectual property rights.
If necessary, Alsace Regional Council will have access to the services of experts at the INPI (National Industrial Property Institute) whose premises are located near the Hôtel de la Région at the following address :
Maison de lʹentreprise
Espace Européen de lʹentreprise
27, Avenue de lʹEurope
67300 Schiltigheim

The legal experts of Alsace Regional Council will be able to access the INPI databases available online for free at www.inpi.fr

Table of Contents

1 - Background
2 - Organization of security
 2.1 - The place of Security in AFNIC’s processes:
 2.2 - Security Coordination
 2.3 - Assignment of responsibilities
 2.3.1 - Organizational chain of responsibility
 2.3.2 - Relations with the authorities and groups of specialists
 2.4 - Independent security review
 2.5 - Relations with third parties
 2.5.1 - Risk Management
 2.5.2 - Security of sensitive areas
 2.5.3 - Sensitive external sites
 2.5.4 - Security assurances for domain name registrants
3 - Registry Asset Management
 3.1 - Responsibilities for Registry assets
 3.1.1 - Inventory of assets
 3.1.2 - Qualification of support assets
 3.1.3 - Ownership of assets
 3.1.4 - Good and fair use of assets
 3.2 - Guidelines for the classification of information
4 - Security related to human resources
 4.1 - Roles and Responsibilities
 4.2 - Background checks conducted on security personnel
5 - Physical and environmental security
 5.1 - Secure areas
 5.2 - Hardware security
6 - Operations Management and Telecommunications
 6.1 - Procedures and responsibilities related to operations
 6.2 - Scheduling and acceptance testing of the system
 6.3 - Protection against malicious and mobile code
 6.4 - Back-up
 6.5 - Security management of network services
 6.6 - Monitoring operation of the System
7 - Access Control
 7.1 - Business requirements for access control
 7.2 - Control of network access
 7.3 - Control of access to operating systems
8 - Acquisition, development and maintenance of information systems
 8.1 - Cryptographic measures
 8.2 - Management of technical vulnerabilities
9 - Managing incidents related to information security
 9.1 - Managing improvement and incidents related to information security
10 - IT Disaster Recovery Plan
11 - Integrating audits of the information system


------------------------
1 - Background
 
This answer was drafted based on AFNICʹs experience, as AFNIC was selected to advise the Alsace Région during the submission of the application. The final selection of the back-end registry operator will take place before june 2012. this selection will follow a public tender process. The Alsace Région will ensure that candidates fulfill or exceed all commitments detailed in this answer.
 
The Information Security Policy is reviewed at least once a year.


------------------------
2 - Organization of security

 ------------------------
 2.1 - The place of Security in AFNIC’s processes:
 
AFNIC has set up a Quality Management System (QMS) following the European Framework for QUality Management (EFQM) excellence model. It describes AFNIC’s activities as a series of business processes. Security Process called “ENSURE SECURITY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY” is one of the cross-business-processes supporting process. It is designed to be compliant with the ISO 27001 norm. 
Ensuring security and business continuity mainly consists in defining and controlling how to :
 * Supervise the governance of security,
 * Apply security measures into the concerned operational fields,
 * Manage the risks that could negatively impact the Registries operations. 

The implementation of the AFNICʹs ISMS (Information Security Management System) is performed in the framework of the Security process with a view to obtaining ISO 27001 certification by 2014.

 ------------------------
 2.2 - Security Coordination

The overall responsibility for security rests with the CEO. He is assisted in this role by the AFNIC Security Manager (ASM).
 
Strategic supervision is ensured in a concerted manner by the AFNIC Security Council (ASC) chaired by the AFNIC CEO. The purpose of the ASC is to assist and ensure that the conditions are conducive to attaining the security objectives that fall within the scope of the current strategy.
 
The ASC further supports the development of security practices at AFNIC through the supporting of operation business functions in implementing security policies, business continuity plans, and staff awareness activities. In carrying out its assignment, the ASC may refer at any time to the Executive Management for advice or a decision on the security of AFNIC and TLD.

 ------------------------
 2.3 - Assignment of responsibilities

 ------------------------
 2.3.1 - Organizational chain of responsibility
 
The application of security measures to the SRS, DNS, Whois, and other Information Systems is the responsibility of the CTO (head of the Information Systems Division).
The implementation of security measures for staff and premises is the responsibility of the CFO.
The implementation of security measures with respect to legal obligations and registry policies is the responsibility of the Registryʹs Legal Affairs and Policies Director.
The application of security measures relating to damage to the Registryʹs image is the responsibility of the Marketing and Innovation Director.
All the collaborators must be aware of their responsibility concerning the security of resources and information they are accessing, manipulating, publishing.

 ------------------------ 
 2.3.2 - Relations with the authorities and groups of specialists
 
AFNIC has an agreement with the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI). Against this background, the two structures cooperate on security issues that may affect AFNIC services related to its Internet business and risk management in this area.
They cooperate within the framework of two programs on the resilience of the Internet in France :
 * Cooperation between the operators of vitals infrastructures in order to improve their capacity to respond to major crises affecting several operators at the same time: the Internet critical services (IP Routing and DNS) are now included in the nomenclature;
 * Cooperation to assess the resilience of the French .fr TLD and more generally all the TLDs operated by AFNIC for use by the public.

 ------------------------
 2.4 - Independent security review 
 
Security audits must be conducted by independent organizations twice a year on global and ⁄ or specific issues related to security.

 ------------------------
 2.5 - Relations with third parties

 ------------------------
 2.5.1 - Risk Management
 
Risk studies are conducted using the EBIOS methodology (Expression of Business needs and Identification of Security Objectives, in French). This method was designed in 1995 by the French National Agency for Information Security. It is currently used to identify the worst-case scenarios that could affect registry activity. That leads Afnic to design and apply mitigation measures to enhance the protection against these worst-case scenarios.
 
The control of the effectiveness and efficiency of mitigation measures is performed by the AFNIC’s Security Council all along the year.

 ------------------------
 2.5.2 - Security of sensitive areas
 
All sensitive areas are under control. That means that access must be controlled and could be restricted to authorized personnel only.
Co-contractors may be requested to sign a confidentiality agreement if required by the sensitivity of information and data they need to know and⁄or use. They only have access to critical technical facilities if accompanied, and never work on production systems.

 ------------------------
 2.5.3 - Sensitive external sites

All security must be applied to protect AFNIC’s resources on external sites. That can be made by private zones and access control to them managed by AFNIC itself.

 ------------------------
 2.5.4 - Security assurances for domain name registrants
 
The Registry guarantees the following for registrants :
 * The continuous availability of operations on its portfolio of domain names, in accordance with the SLA on the SRS
 * The continuous availability of information related to the domain, on condition that the registrant uses the services provided to carry out the operations in question,
 * The confidentiality of the registrantsʹ personal data (except where other special conditions apply related to the policy of the registry)
 * The confidentiality of non-public data relating to the domain and ⁄ or its portfolio of domain names,
 * The confidentiality of the transactions with the Registryʹs system,
 * The integrity of the information related to its domain name,and published in the WHOIS and the DNS.


------------------------
3 - Registry Asset Management

The security of the registryʹs assets is ensured by the staff assigned to the registryʹs production operations and management activities.
Considering the network connectivity provided by third party, AFNIC’s property begins at the service delivery point. 

 ------------------------
 3.1 - Responsibilities for Registry assets

 ------------------------ 
 3.1.1 - Inventory of assets

Assets used in the run of critical services are identified, qualified, and managed under the guidance of the present policy. Assets considered are staff, infrastructure, software, connectivity, data and providers.

 ------------------------
 3.1.2 - Qualification of support assets
 
The assets contributing to the Services are classified in 3 main categories :
 * Computer Systems and Telecommunications : Hardware and Software; Communications Channels; Outsourced Services;
 * Organizations : Staff; Corporate departments;
 * Physical locations for business : Offices; Hosting Datacenters;

 ------------------------
 3.1.3 - Ownership of assets

Registry data belong to the Registry owner. They are subject to the rules of the contract with ICANN, plus the applicable legal and ⁄ or legislative rules depending on the context in which the registry is implemented

 ------------------------
 3.1.4 - Good and fair use of assets
 
All the registry operations and services must be used by third party in accordance with the contractual rules defined by the owner and the operator of the TLD.

 ------------------------
 3.2 - Guidelines for the classification of information

The data used or produced in the context of the Registry are classified in the 3 following categories :

= Critical information = : it can⁄must be accessed⁄showed only by accredited persons. Disclosure or alteration may result in significant damage but repairable.

= Reserved information = : Information is limited to persons, entities or authorized partners. Disclosure or alteration may result in significant harm.

= Internal Information = : Information is available to staff of AFNIC and authorized partners. Disclosure or alteration may perturb the normal functioning of the company, without lasting consequence.


------------------------
4 - Security related to human resources

 ------------------------
 4.1 - Roles and Responsibilities

There are 2 categories of staff :

 * Technical staff : These personnel have access to resources according to defined rights.
 * Administrators in charge of administering production resources. They can access all the production resources and data.
 * Technicians in charge of the operation, maintenance and monitoring of the production system. They have limited rights of access to production resources. They can access certain resources on request and when accompanied by an administrator.
 * Experts in charge of the design and development of production resources. They only have access to the production resources on request and when accompanied by a technician and ⁄ or an administrator.
 * Non-technical staff :
 * Administrative staff and managers (excluding production).

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 4.2 - Background checks conducted on security personnel

French law applies to all staff. The contract they sign with their employer contains sufficient provisions in terms of professionalism and ethics for the activity involving the TLD. Same rules are applicable a Data Center level.


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5 - Physical and environmental security

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 5.1 - Secure areas

AFNIC production sites are secured at the means of access to them. The DATA CENTER sites must meet the standards of industrial and environmental security compatible with the constraints implied by their activity. The layout of the premises must be such that access is restricted only to authorized personnel at entry points selected and controlled by AFNIC.

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 5.2 - Hardware security

The Data centers that host AFNIC services ensure at least Tier 3 levels of resilience.


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6 - Operations Management and Telecommunications

AFNIC controls the operation of all the resources used to deliver essential services with the exception, of course, of outsourced services such as certain DNS servers.
AFNIC operates dark fiber connections between its sites. The terminals are owned by AFNIC. They are operated by AFNIC personnel.

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 6.1 - Procedures and responsibilities related to operations

Operating procedures are documented and kept up to date on the intranet of the IT team.
Access to the applications, servers and databases must be defined and kept up to date for each staff member.
Access privileges are defined in order to respect the security rules associated with the classification of information.
Operations related to DNSSEC are subject to even more stringent security regulations and require respecting the DPS procedure.

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 6.2 - Scheduling and acceptance testing of the system

The test, pre-production and production phases must be clearly specified. Any production launch must be announced to the registrars at least 2 month before it applies.

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 6.3 - Protection against malicious and mobile code

All the entry points to the production servers are filtered by the firewall, which applies the filtering policy common to all the procedures, whether they involve a human operator or an automated process.
 
Each development must apply security rules and recommendations on the development of application.
The Web access must be protected against the most common (Script kiddies, SQL injection …)

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 6.4 - Back-up

Registry data are stored and secured using the real-time replication mechanisms of the production Database Management System (production DBMS).
 In addition, a physical backup of the entire database must be performed at the same time as the back-up of the other components of the SRS.
To be compliant with the ICANN requirements, a data escrow deposit must be performed every day between 0:00 am end 12:00pm

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 6.5 - Security management of network services

A strict partitioning into zones must be implemented in order to avoid interconnections between the external production, administration and backup networks.
 
Any internal and external attempts to access production servers must pass through a Firewall. They are recorded in a log file for later analysis. The detection of malicious code based on a regularly updated list must be performed at this level.
 
An intrusion detections system must be installed and running between firewall and production servers.

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 6.6 - Monitoring operation of the System

Automated monitoring must be implemented. It must cover the hardware, software systems and production applications.
Any failure must be subject to a specific alert sent to the staff:
 * on duty during office hours;
 * on standby outside office hours;


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7 - Access Control

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 7.1 - Business requirements for access control

Access to the information system requires prior identification and authentication. The use of shared or anonymous accounts must be avoided. Mechanisms to limit the services, data, and privileges to which the users have access based on their role at AFNIC and the Registry must be implemented wherever possible.

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 7.2 - Control of network access

The internal network must be partitioned to isolate the different services and applications and limit the impact of incidents. In particular it is highly desirable to isolate services visible from the outside in a semi-open zone (DMZ). Similarly, access to the wireless network must be controlled and the network must be subject to appropriate encryption.

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 7.3 - Control of access to operating systems

The production servers must be confined in secure facilities. Access must be restricted to authorized personnel only. The personnel in question are the members of the operating teams and their managers, IT personnel and those of the Security Manager.


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8 - Acquisition, development and maintenance of information systems

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 8.1 - Cryptographic measures

Cryptographic measures must be implemented to secure the exchanges :
 * between the workstations of technical staff and the access proxies to production servers;
 * between the Registrars and the EPP server;
 * between the DNS master servers and the resolution servers;
 * to upload the records of the Escrow Agent.

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 8.2 - Management of technical vulnerabilities

The technical configuration of hardware and software used must be subject to up to date documentation.
The changes in technical configurations must be constantly monitored and documented.
Security alerts involving updates and ⁄ or patches to production systems must be constantly monitored.
Application procedures must be documented and updated based on the recommendations of the designers of a component.


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9 - Managing incidents related to information security

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 9.1 - Managing improvement and incidents related to information security
 
The crisis management procedure serves to mobilize at a sufficiently high echelon, all the appropriate levels of responsibility for taking decisions on the actions required to resolve the crisis and return to normal.
Each security incident must be analyzed under the cover of the Security Council and the recommendations, if any, are applied, checked and evaluated as required by the QMS.


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10 - IT Disaster Recovery Plan
 
The risk analysis must produce some inputs for the elaboration of a disaster recovery plan. That plan has to be established and regularly tested in order to maintain or recover Registry activity and make critical services available at the required SLA after an interruption or a crash of critical services of the Registry.


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11 - Integrating audits of the information system

Security audits are performed annually. They are launched on the initiative of the CTO or upon request from the ASC. They are carried out by independent bodies and relate to one or more of the essentials services of the Registry. 
The ASC and the ASM control the implementation and the efficiency of these measures in the framework of S3 process (see section 2.1).