ICANN Announcements

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ICANN Launches Root Zone Management System Upgrade

13 December 2022

The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), through its Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), performed a major upgrade to the Root Zone Management System (RZMS), launching a rebuilt platform that will be more adaptable to future needs.

New features now available include the ability for top-level domain (TLD) managers to authorize additional people to interact with IANA at custom authorization levels. TLD managers can flexibly tailor configurations for improved security. Other improvements include allowing multiple simultaneous requests and streamlined bulk updates through a new application programming interface (API).

The New Generic Top-Level Domains Program significantly grew the number of TLDs in the root zone, which also changed how some of IANA's customers work. Some organizations now manage hundreds of TLDs and IANA identified the need for new tools to help them streamline management of their portfolios. IANA also saw a need to cater for new kinds of requests that didn't exist before, like frequent updates to the signing keys for TLDs.

Conformance testing of TLD infrastructure, the "technical check" process, has also been separated into its own independent system. Decoupling technical checks from RZMS allows the technical checks to evolve. This includes adding new tests to identify additional problematic TLD configurations and facilitating performance optimizations so that tests can run faster.

IANA looks forward to continuing conversations with stakeholders as it rolls out further improvements.

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address – a name or a number – into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a nonprofit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from all over the world.