[dns-operations] Karl Auerbach on adding 'millions' more TLD - what do folks think about the operational impact?

[Douglas Otis]

On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 06:50 +0100, Patrik Fältström wrote:
> On 9 jan 2007, at 06.30, Steve Gibbard wrote:
> 
> > So, how big is too big for the root?  I don't have an answer, but  
> > suspect
> > the limiter is the rate of churn rather than the size of the zone  
> > file.
> 
> ...and of course the number of changes could be proportional to the  
> size of the zone(?).
> 
> Do we have data on this? Would be interesting to know...

The rate of change is not proportional to size. .com's rate of change is
much higher by an order of magnitude compared to other TLDs, perhaps due
to domain tasting.

With a 12 hour period, a complete zone transfer for .com had about
138,000,000 lines which includes name server information.  Within these
entries, about 1,600,000 domains were added and 1,200,000 deleted.  That
is out of about 60 million.

Being able to sustain support for this rate of change suggests managing
a larger number of TLDs would be technically feasible, especially when
better controls are in place than what currently exists for second level
domains.  To guard against common abuses, domain introduction reporting,
with a hold period after reporting is needed even for second level
domains. This would be akin to the solicitation and comment period now
impeding newer TLDs. 

Many ccTLDs do not facilitate monitoring.  ICANN might establish better
conventions to slow down the high turnover at the second level that is
largely of a criminal nature.  A report and hold process might reduce
the level of abuse at both the TLD and SLD.

-Doug