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Blogs 

 

Most Recent Blog Update 

The IANA Transition:  The Work Ahead

Author:  Matthew Shears     Global Internet Policy

        

 

On 17 August, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence Strickling announced that the US government would be extending the IANA contract with ICANN through 30 September 2016. This long anticipated extension reflects the community’s need for additional time to accomplish a number of important tasks, in order to bring about the IANA stewardship transition. The extension does not mean that the community is not delivering on its commitments, but rather that the process of ensuring appropriate consultation, refining proposals, securing endorsement from the ICANN community, undergoing interagency review, etc., is going to take more time.

The extension is a welcome, practical, and necessary step that provides the community with a realistic timeframe going forward while ensuring the stability and continuity of the DNS. The extension reflects a “best case” timeline set out by the community in which it suggested that the accountability-related requirements for the transition would only likely be accomplished by July 2016 and that an extension to September 2016 would be prudent. The work that needs to be accomplished between now and then is considerable, as is shown in this timeline.

The extension is a welcome, practical, and necessary step that provides the community with a realistic timeframe going forward while ensuring the stability and continuity of the DNS.

By the time of the ICANN meeting in Dublin in mid-October, the transition and accountability proposals that are currently out for public comment need to be finalized. Any substantive issues raised in the consultations will need to be addressed by the community prior to the Dublin meeting. Assuming that these and other issues can be resolved, the names community will (hopefully) endorse the accountability proposal at the ICANN meeting and the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) will produce the final version of its transition proposal. Once the two proposals are ready, it is expected that the ICANN Board will forward them to NTIA, at the end of October or early November.

While the proposal package – both transition and accountability enhancements – undergoes scrutiny in the interagency and Congressional review processes, the community cannot afford to rest. The Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) Accountability proposal section on implementation and timing outlines the work that needs to be done and highlights the process that has been initiated for drafting the bylaws that will be required to be in place for the transition. Beyond this, however, there are no specific implementation plans in place. Given the limited timeframe within which to accomplish the work, a determination needs to be made quickly as to whether the existing transition and accountability working groups will be addressing implementation issues or if other working groups or mechanisms will need to be established.

Work will also have to start addressing those accountability enhancements that do not necessarily have to be in place for the transition, but that are important to the increased accountability of the ICANN post-transition.  These issues – also outlined towards the end of the CCWG Accountability proposal – include refining operational aspects of the proposals that need to be in place for the transition, looking at government participation in ICANN and jurisdiction, as well as community accountability, transparency, diversity, and human rights, among others. Issues such as government participation and jurisdiction are complex and politically charged, and will no doubt engender considerable debate.  The resulting proposal will also go through an iterative drafting process as well as rounds of public comment.

Throughout the next year the community will need a lot of resolve and stamina. The extension does not mean that there can be a let-up in effort – there is still much to be accomplished for the transition to occur by 30 September 2016.

Date:  10 May 2016
Original Post:  https://www.icann.org/news/blog/iana-stewardship-transition-planning-update-volume-2

 

IANA Stewardship Transition Planning Update (Volume 2)
 

Root Zone Management

The Root Zone Management implementation planning track contains projects relating to changes to the Root Zone Management System (RZMS) to remove NTIA's authorization role, parallel testing of the production and parallel test RZMS systems; and the development, and execution of an agreement with Verisign as the root zone maintainer.

Root Zone Management System (RZMS) Parallel Testing

Status update:

It has been one month since the start of the parallel testing period and everything continues to go smoothly. Click here to view Verisign’s daily Parallel Operations Root Zone Management System Comparison Reports of all the root zone files generated.

In addition to Verisign’s daily reports, ICANN has posted the first of three Monthly Reports on RZMS Parallel Testing Progress during the testing period. The report is available on ICANN’s dedicated Parallel Testing landing page.

In the event that no unexplained differences in root zone files are identified between the production RZMS and the parallel test RZMS, the testing period will end successfully on 5 July 2016.

Documents/announcements posted:

Mailing list:

  • None.

Root Zone Maintainer Agreement (RZMA)

Status update:

Discussions between ICANN and Verisign to finalize details of the RZMA are continuing. The two parties have coalesced around many key elements of the agreement and hope to have a final draft by the end of the month.

Once the draft RZMA is finalized it will be made publicly available on icann.org.

Documents/announcements posted:

  • None.

Mailing list(s):

  • None.

 

Stewardship Transition

The Stewardship Transition planning track contains projects to prepare relationship documentation with the operational communities, creation of a Post-Transition IANA (PTI) entity, establishment of a Customer Standing Committee (CSC) and a Root Zone Evolution Review Committee (RZERC), operationalizing the IANA customer service escalation mechanisms and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Post-Transition IANA (PTI)

Status update:

ICANN has been working with the Implementation Oversight Task Force (IOTF) on various activities relating to the PTI. Summaries of PTI formation documents (Bylaws, articles of incorporation) as well as the conflict of interest policy have been shared with the IOTF.  ICANN continues to work with the IOTF to finalize the process and timing of review for these documents as well as for the ICANN-PTI contracts.

Documents/announcements posted this week:

  • None.

Mailing list(s):

Customer Standing Committee (CSC)

Status update:

In the CWG-Stewardship proposal, the Domain Names community recommended that a CSC be formed to replace NTIA’s role as it relates to monitoring performance of the IANA naming function. The composition of the CSC will include members and liaisons from all ICANN Supporting Organizations(SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs).

A Request for Appointment is expected to be sent to SOs and ACs this month to appoint members and liaisons to the CSC using their internal processes.

Documents/announcements posted this week:

  • None.

Mailing list(s):

Root Zone Evolution Review Committee (RZERC)

Status update:

The RZERC Charter (v4) was circulated to the CWG-Stewardship on 4 May 2016. The CWG-Stewardship will discuss the Charter on their 12 May 2016 call, and members and participants of the group are encouraged to provide any comment by 23:59 UTC on 17 May 2016.

Following analysis and incorporation of any input received from the CWG-Stewardship, ICANN will post the Charter for a 30-day public comment period.

Documents/announcements:

Mailing list(s):

 

Accountability Enhancements

The Accountability Enhancements track contains plans to implement enhancements to ICANN’s Independent Review and Reconsideration Request processes, to update ICANN’s governance documents, and to operationalize new community powers defined by the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability).

ICANN's Bylaws

Status update:

ICANN and the community are in the middle of a 30-day public comment period on the new draft ICANNBylaws. Any interested party can submit comments to the public comment forum until 23:59 UTC on 21 May 2016. 

Adoption of the new Bylaws by the ICANN Board is anticipated for on or around 27 May 2016. Once new ICANN Bylaws have been adopted, ICANN will notify NTIA so they can complete their anticipated 90-day review of the IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal.

Documents/announcements:

Mailing list(s):