Proposed IANA SLAs for ccTLD Creation and Transfer

Purpose: As required by the IANA Naming Function Process for Amending the IANA Naming SLAs, the purpose of this public comment proceeding is to obtain community input on a proposed change to one SLA and three proposed new SLAs which would define expectations of request processing timeliness for ccTLD creation and ccTLD transfers. If adopted, the changed SLA and new requirements will be added to the performance metrics as defined in the Service Level Agreements for the IANA Naming Functions Contract. The ccTLD delegation and transfer process is designed to assign or re-assign a ccTLD to a manager, taking into account a number of technical and public interest criteria. There is currently a single measurement of staff processing time for ccTLD delegation and transfer requests, representing the cumulative time the request is being processed by the IANA team for the life of a request. However, the processing time for this type of request varies greatly from several weeks to several months. the CSC and PTI determined that perhaps identifying new SLAs that measure these transactions in a totally different manner is necessary.

Current Status: According to the Process for Amending the IANA Naming SLAs, the Customer Standing Committee and PTI have agreed upon the new metrics, and now seek community consultation through this public comment process.

Next Steps: Feedback from this public comment period will be considered for the final SLA recommendation.

The ccTLD delegation and transfer process is designed to assign or re-assign a ccTLD to a manager, taking into account a number of technical and public interest criteria. The processing time for this type of request varies greatly from several weeks to several months. Key factors in the process time include how well-documented the request is when first submitted, the overall complexity of the circumstances of the change and the proposed operations, and how quickly any missing or deficient documentation is cured.

There is currently only one measurement of staff processing time for ccTLD delegation and transfer requests which measures the total time the request is with the IANA team from beginning to end. The current SLA for this metric, "Time to complete all other validations and reviews by Contractor and release request for implementation" for "Creating or Transferring a ccTLD" is 60 days.

In reviewing data from March 2016 to today, the current measurement of 60 days did not prove to be a representative measure of IANA performance given that this type of request is low volume, highly complex, and extremely varied based on the quality of the request submission. The goal in defining the SLA metrics was to create indicators where current actual performance was considered acceptable, given community satisfaction with those levels.

Further consideration of the materials suggests it would be more meaningful to divide the manual processing into more discrete processing steps and focus on measuring performance through new metrics, such as:

1. Time for staff to evaluate and respond to each submission of supporting documentation by the requester.
2. Time for staff to produce a completed delegation or transfer report for review by the ICANN Board of Directors after all materials provided by the requester have been deemed sufficient.
3. The number of interactions with the customer as an indication of the quality of the request (to be provided as information only).

On 7 May 2019 the SLA amendment process was established through an amendment to the IANA Naming Function Contract. Subsequently this proposal has been developed for public comment.

The proposed SLA metrics can be found in the document "Service Levels for the ccTLD Creation and Transfer Process Change Analysis."

The IANA Naming Function Contract specifies a set of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) the IANA Naming Functions operator PTI must adhere to and that the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) is empowered to oversee. The "Process for Amending the IANA Naming Service Level Agreements" was utilized in determining the need for these proposed SLA amendments. This process also defines the method for approving a change, as well as the appropriate consultation level needed to finalize a change. This process contains safeguards and mechanisms to ensure that due diligence will be followed in making changes to the SLAs.

Per the process, "If the CSC and PTI reach a mutual decision to proceed with the SLA change, PTI should draft a change recommendation, which includes an impact analysis that expands with further detail based on their earlier discussions during the 'procedure for determining that a SLA needs amending' stage." In accordance with the SLA change process requirement, PTI provided the attached "Service Levels for the ccTLD Creation and Transfer Process Change Analysis" document, which provides a description of the proposed change and additional new SLAs and an implementation analysis. It was determined to move forward with these SLA recommendations

Public Technical Identifiers (PTI)

IANA Naming Functions Contract

IANA Naming Functions Contract Service Level Agreements

IANA Naming Function Process for Amending the IANA Naming SLAs

Report for Community Input:

Service Levels for the ccTLD Creation and Transfer Process Change Analysis

• Report