HAMBURG, Germany – CIRA (Canadian Internet Registry Authority) and Dutch counterpart SIDN — registries of Canada’s .CA domain and Netherlands’ .NL domain, respectively — announced Tuesday a new partnership to jointly develop and build a new internet registry platform.
The code base and intellectual property of the product, known internally at CIRA as “Fury”, will be transferred to a jointly owned and managed corporation based in Canada, according to a press release.
Under the agreement, SIDN will be migrating .NL, the fourth largest country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) in the world, to the new jointly owned and developed registry platform.
“When migration is complete, .NL will be running on a new cloud-based version of the current CIRA Registry Platform with the functionality and features SIDN requires to manage the registry effectively,” the release reads.
“The new partnership between two of the world’s leading ccTLDs solidifies the CIRA Registry Platform as among the best in the industry,” the release adds.
CIRA and SIDN will collaborate to develop new features, integrate new technologies and expand the market opportunity for the improved platform for years to come, the release says.
“After an extensive process to determine the successor to SIDN’s current registry platform, DRS5, it was determined that the best course of action was to partner with an existing registry to co-develop a new system,” the release explains. “CIRA was chosen because of its industry-leading technology, internal expertise and shared values. Both organizations also have a well-established history of collaboration to advance innovation and the values of the open internet.”
The combined strength of CIRA and SIDN will allow for faster development, shared resources, lower costs and shared risk for both organizations, while providing tangible benefits to registrants and registrars of .CA and .NL domains as the underlying technology will be more robust and resilient than ever before, according to the release.
“As we enter a new phase for the domain industry, one of increasing competition, consolidation and new technologies, it is critical that like-minded TLDs work together,” Byron Holland, president and CEO of CIRA, said in the release. “SIDN is a great partner for this endeavour, their long history of leadership and innovation in our industry will only help to strengthen and protect the platform that runs both .CA, and soon .NL, while helping to build an online platform for similar communities around the world.”
“This unique strategic collaboration offers SIDN and CIRA many advantages and prospects,” said Roelof Meijer, SIDN’s CEO. “There are benefits in the shorter term due to, among other things, accelerated commissioning of a new, state-of-the-art registration system at lower costs and lower risks than in-house construction from the ground up. And there are benefits and long-term perspectives through lower TCO (total cost of ownership), faster development, a larger pool of expertise and impact in our industry by offering a ‘best-of-breed’ registration system for peers.”
The financial terms of the deal between CIRA and SIDN were not disclosed.
