News
DENIC 2011 Domain Statistics - From Zwickau to Zweibr
DENIC, the registry
for .de domains, annually presents the results of regional domain statistics.
In 2011, about 13.8 million domains were recorded in 402 cities and districts,
across Germany. Adding to these are more than 870,000 domains with holders
residing outside Germany, which account for about 5.9 percent of the total .de
domain inventory. All in all, 14,740,474 domains were registered with DENIC, on
31 December 2011.
In 2010/2011, the
federal average increase rate of domains was 7.6 percent compared to 6.4
percent in 2009/2010. This corresponds to an increase of about 979,000 domains
(compared to 775,000 in the preceding year).
Statistically, about
every sixth inhabitant of the Federal Republic of Germany has registered a .de
domain (16.9 percent compared to 15.7 in the preceding year). As a result,
Germany ranks fourth in Europe after the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland.
Popularity of .de
domains outside of Germany remains high. At the end of 2011, more than 870,000
domain holders – thus accounting for about 5.9 percent – resided outside of
Germany. Scoring second last year, Great Britain (98,500) now has taken the
rank of Switzerland (95,978), which was last year's leader among the countries
of origin of the domain holders. Rank three is still held by the United States
of America (77.840), followed by last year's number six, the Netherlands
(76,770).
All figures are based
on an analysis of the domain database of the German registry DENIC as of 31
December 2011. They continue the regional domain statistics, which have been
compiled by DENIC each year since 1995.
The overall 2011
results in the form of an Excel spreadsheet are accessible for download via the
statistics section of the DENIC website, at http://www.denic.de/en/background/statistics/regional-distribution/2011.html. They include information on all administrative
districts and incorporated cities within Germany. In addition to absolute
values, the statistics also provide data on the number of domains related to
the number of inhabitants as well as maps and diagrams showing the absolute and
the relative distribution of .de domains among German domain holders and those
from abroad.
Workshop on DNSSEC implementation held
Register of National Internet Domain
Names of Serbia (RNIDS) organised the DNSSEC implementation
workshop on 16 and 17 May at hotel ‘Moskva’ in Belgrade with Patrik
Wallström and Rickard Bellgrim from the Swedish national registry as
lecturers.
The workshop gathered about thirty participants who dealt with installing and
maintaining DNS servers. DNS is considered to be one of the pillars the Internet is build on and thus
the security and accuracy of data provided by DNS is critical for the survival
of the Internet as an ordered space.
DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is a set of extensions for DNS servers
increasing the security of DNS service users by cryptographically
signing DNS responses using the public key so that their authenticity can be
checked. Signing entire zones on DNS servers enables the confidence first among
various DNS servers
that exchange information and then with the end user who gets the accurate and
unchanged information about the location of a particular server.
Malicious activities of modifying the content of a DNS cache, which are well
known, imply entering false, altered IP addresses of particular servers into
the cache. If the user searches for www.some-bank.rs, instead of the correct IP address he will get the one that
the attacker has entered into the DNS cache and thus directed the user to a
wrong website where he could be required to provide his confidential
information. DNSSEC prevents precisely such problems.
RNIDS plans to introduce DNSSEC for the local .RS and .СРБ Internet domain
space and in doing so join the European registries which have already enabled
it to their users.
CIRA celebrates 25 years of .CA
On May 14, 2012, Canada’s .CA turned 25 years old. It was on this day in 1987 that the .CA top-level domain was officially delegated by Jon Postel, operator of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), to John Demco at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Read furtherDomain .РФ is 2 years old
Two years ago domain .РФ became one of the first IDN-domains in the world on May 12, 2012 registers of root server of global domain addresses received an entry about Cyrillic domain .РФ and on November 11, 2010 domain started an open registration of domain names.
Database Award 2012 - DENIC: A terabyte migration
Yesterday, it was granted for the second time, the Database Award of the German computer magazine "COMPUTERWOCHE" and its partner Oracle.
Innovative spirit, strategic importance to the company and sophisticated technologies are the criteria to determine the winners. This year, DENIC is one of them. Participating for the first time, the registry immediately won the second place.
As the second-largest Internet registry in the world, DENIC administers the more than 15 million domain names of the German Top Level Domain .de.
Accordingly, the requirements to be met by the database, the core applications, like the registration system and the whois lookup service, and the accounting system are very demanding. The data amount having grown to terabyte level, time had come to upgrade the old database and adapt it to today's business needs. DENIC decided to carry out a complete redesign of the data model and launched the DB refactoring project. The aim of this project was improved data integrity at enhanced performance to thus create a database that facilitated future adaptations.
Database migration during ongoing operation to ensure uninterrupted availability of all DENIC services was the particular challenge of the project. To this end, two databases – the old one and a new one – were operated in parallel, so that service migration could be implemented step by step without disturbing operation. In the first step, data were entered and continually updated in the new database. This process was accompanied by repeated consistency checks of the old and the new database. Long-term parallel operation of the two databases made the last step, the shut-down of the old database on 27 December 2011, almost a formality.
All in all a tremendous challenge. The jury was impressed: "The project illustrated how sustainability can be achieved through an innovative data model," reads the motivation of the jury’s choice. "Moreover, the new system was launched with a terabyte migration during ongoing operation, and the users did not even notice it."
The result is a high-performance database that processes business transactions up to ten times quicker than before and that provides a future-proof data model. "Our staff has been greatly committed to implement this project successfully," says Marcos Sanz Grossón, Head of DENIC's Software Engineering Department. "I am very pleased about the recognition the project has received with the Database Award; it will be an incentive for our future work."
In a video portrait created by COMPUTERWOCHE and commented by the jury, experts from DENIC provide background information and explicate the meaning of the project:
http://www.computerwoche.de/subnet/oracle-senior-it/2512423/Nominet targets ‘offline’ businesses in .uk brand push
Nominet, the not-for-profit organisation responsible for the smooth and secure running of the .uk infrastructure, announces the launch of a brand campaign to support its business delivering internet domain names ending in .uk.
The campaign, called ‘A great place to be’ emphasizes the benefits of having a .co.uk, .org.uk or .me.uk domain name for businesses, organisations or individuals in establishing a UK-centric, trusted internet presence.
Highlighting the trust and status associated with .uk domain names, a campaign website at www.agreatplacetobe.co.uk will be the hub of the campaign, featuring customer testimonials as part of its creative execution, supported by online and off-line awareness campaigns targeting potential registrants. Promotions and supporting materials for the .uk sales channel - Nominet’s registrars - will follow.
This news follows Nominet passing the milestone of the registration of the 10 millionth .uk domain in March 2012.
The campaign is focused on delivering and building a compelling .uk brand story for businesses and consumers, and will build on the solid foundations of trust, status and reliability.
“According to figures from the Office of National Statistics, more than 20% of British businesses still do not have their own website” says Phil Kingsland, Director of Marketing and Communications at Nominet.
“As we look to continue to grow .uk’s leadership in a changing market, the internet offers these ‘offline’ small and mid-sized businesses a significant untapped opportunity. These businesses are often local, community centric and therefore stand to gain the most from using a .uk domain as the online home for their business.”
Jonathan Jones, Commercial Director at Tregothnan, attributes the company’s .uk domain with the success of the business in an online video for the campaign: “.co.uk is a really good way of us communicating what we are and the products that we have… it’s a way of expressing our Britishness to our consumers. It’s about trust: if I go online and I see .co.uk, I know about provenance, I know where they’re from, and I think our customers like to know about that too.”
The campaign is targeted with increasing the annual growth rate of the .uk register - currently at 9.3%.
Notes to editors
- Brand identity work was developed with Design Bridge
- Digital campaign elements were created by Outside Line
- For information on the history and growth of the .uk registry, please visit http://db.nominet.org.uk/
For more information
Please contact
Patrick Yiu at Brands2Life
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+44 20 7592 1200
Country Domains of Azerbaijan and Georgia Placed in Hostmaster's Cloud
Hostmaster, the .UA domain operator, placed information about the domains .AZ (Azerbaijan) and .GE (Georgia) on its DNS servers.
This helped to enhance fault tolerance and operational reliability of Azerbaijan's and Georgia's domain systems, in particular under high loads. Moreover, Ukrainian Internet users will benefit from faster loading of web sites in these domains.
Hostmaster's DNS servers are located both in Ukraine (in regional capitals) and outside the country, which provides users from all over the globe with fast access to Ukrainian web sites.
SIDN to handle technical realisation of .amsterdam
Publishing house HUB Uitgevers has appointed SIDN, to undertake technical realisation of the new top-level internet domain (TLD) .amsterdam. Amsterdam’s municipal authority asked HUB Uitgevers to operate the Dutch capital’s TLD after careful market research. The expectation is that the new TLD will come on line in 2013. Pre-registration is possible at puntamsterdam.nl and dotamsterdam.nl from 7 May.
Roelof Meijer, SIDN’s CEO said, “Naturally we are very pleased that Amsterdam and HUB have chosen SIDN to handle the technical realisation of .amsterdam. With nearly five million registered .nl domain names, we have vast experience with all aspects of domain nameregistration. We expect new TLDs such as .amsterdam to change the internet landscape. Clearly, therefore, we want to be involved in this development.”
Click to go to article
Liberalisation of the .pt domain has generated more than 20,000 new addresses
"In the first eight hours of liberalization of the domain, the portuguese Internet grew by almost 5%. The process ends with old restrictions and can mean economic potential for the country."