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SRS Implementation Final Report 08/09/03

With the sale of Domainz on Friday 5 September 2003, InternetNZ has seen the final act in the transition to open competition of the .nz domain name space.

What started back in December 1999, with an AGM resolution that "Council set up an open working group to investigate a full proposal on possible shared registration systems and other registry models after consultation with Domainz", became a major project following the outcomes of the Hine Report.

Doug Mercer, the SRS Implementation Technical Manager, has produced a final report (.pdf) focusing on the approach to the technical aspects of the SRS implementation. This report shows that the SRS was successfully delivered within budget and on time. While always difficult to achieve "on time and on budget" IT projects, the SRS was compounded by the wide range of issues and parties involved.

Though a post-implementation review has not yet been undertaken on the SRS implementation, a casual observation shows that the objectives set by the Hine Report are reflected well in the final product. Support for the model is also seen in the high level of interest from organisations to become authorised registrars.

As at 31 August 2003, 30 organisations were authorised as .nz registrars and connected to the SRS providing direct .nz domain name registration services. A further 10 organisations were authorised as registrars, and were preparing to connect to the production environment.

There is now a broad range of registrars for registrants to select from, with a range of prices and services that reflect a competitive market. Actions taken by InternetNZ through policies put in place during the period Domainz acted as the Stabilising Registrar, also assisted in decreasing the number of names with Domainz. This removed the dominant share of domain names held by Domainz and helped InternetNZ to effectively sell Domainz without negatively impacting the newly competitive market.

It is almost a year since the first stage of the SRS went live, back in October 2002. Doug Mercer's reports, and subsequent events, indicate the success of the SRS implementation. All those involved should be proud of its success.

We would like to pay special tribute to the professional staff who evolved the Hine Report into reality. Our gratitude goes to:

Rose Percival, SRS Implementation Manager
Doug Mercer, SRS Technical Project Manager
Debbie Monahan, Domain Name Commissioner
Derek Locke, CEO, Domainz Ltd
Nick Griffin, Registry Manager, .nz Registry Services

We also extend our gratitude to all the other staff, volunteers and stakeholders who contributed positively to this successful project. The sale of Domainz and the agreement from the Registry to release the SRS source code this week marks the end of a long and often difficult path to achieving the truly competitive and pro-registrant Shared Registry Service for the.nz namespace.

Keith Davidson - President
David Farrar - Vice-President
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