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Root Zone Maintainer Agreement (RZMA)

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Status of RZMA

28 September 2016:  ICANN and Verisign signed the RZMA.

 

Overview

In a letter sent on March 4, 2015, NTIA officially requested that Verisign and ICANN work together to develop a proposal on how best to transition NTIA’s administrative role associated with root zone management in a manner that maintains the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet’s DNS. In August 2015, ICANN and Verisign submitted a proposal in response to NTIA’s request.

Concurrent to the work on updates and parallel testing of the RZMS, ICANN and Verisign discussed and negotiated terms of a Root Zone Maintainer Agreement (RZMA). The RZMA is intended to ensure stable, secure, and reliable maintenance of the root zone post-transition. ICANN and Verisign agreed upon terms of the RZMA, which were published for a 30-day public review period starting on June 29, 2016.

Under the RZMA, Verisign will continue to provide services for root zone maintenance, root zone signing management of the root zone’s zone signing key, and distribution of the root zone file and related files to the root zone operators at a nominal fee. The RZMA will have an eight-year term, which is intended to promote the security, stability and resiliency of root zone maintenance operations by having Verisign continue its current role for the term of the agreement.

The RZMA also provides the community the ability – through a consensus-based, community-driven process – to require ICANN to transition the root zone maintenance function to another service provider after three years. It also allows for the community to recommend changes to service level agreements and the RZMS as root zone management evolves.

As required by the ICG proposal, the RZMA was posted for a 30-day public review period on June 29, 2016. On August 9, 2016, the ICANN Board passed a resolution approving the RZMA, and directed ICANN staff to move forward with signing the agreement. ICANN and Verisign signed the RZMA on 28 September 2016.

The RZMA will go into effect once the cooperative agreement between NTIA and Verisign is amended to release Verisign from root zone maintainer obligations with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

 

Relevant Links

Root Zone Maintainer Agreement (RZMA)

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