DENIC, JPRS and CIRA, the registries for Germany (.de) , Japan (.jp) and Canada (.ca) respectively, among others have each signed contracts with the Internet Systems Consortium agreeing to substantially contribute to the development of BIND10.
BIND is the world’s best-known software for name servers – the servers that translate domain names into IP addresses. The current version of BIND, version 9, has already been in use for ten years. During that time, the Internet has moved on and there have been major changes in user expectations, software technology and computer architecture. BIND10 will address a number of shortcomings of the existing design including security and resilience, and its modular structure will enable customisation.
“CIRA is committed to participating in valuable and innovative, global projects that are rooted in the public interest and that will further the evolution of DNS,” said Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA. “BIND 10 is critical to the infrastructure of the Internet and essential for CIRA to provide a robust, high-performance DNS that will ensure the availability of dot-ca domains to all Canadians.”
BIND is being developed by ISC, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ongoing development of the Internet on the basis of self-regulation and self-organization. ISC will publish BIND in the form of open-source freeware, thus facilitating the activities of registries and registrars around the world, regardless of their size. A recent survey found that roughly 70 percent of public name servers use BIND already now, which makes it an essential component of the Internet’s infrastructure.
According to the current plan, BIND 10 will include the following features:
1. Secure
- Full support of DNSSEC
- Improved key management and renewal benefiting DNSSEC operators
2. Flexible
- Modular design
- Facile integration with external modules and programs
3. Scalable
- Adaptability to a wide range of systems from a large complex system used by TLDs to small home system
4. Resilient
- System logs to provide data necessary for identifying the causes of failures
- Prompt notification of and response to threats against security, including attacks from outside.
Like its predecessors, BIND 10 will be released by ISC as the open-source software and offered to the entire Internet community.
Other registries participating in the BIND 10 development project are:
- Afilias (.info)
- AFNIC (.fr/ France)
- IIS.SE (.se/ Sweden)
- Nominet (.uk/ United Kingdom)
- Registro.br (.br/ Brazil)
- SIDN (.nl/ The Netherlands)
- ZADNA (.za/ South Africa).