[DT-F] REVISED: Design Team F kickoff

[Suzanne Woolf]

Alan,

On Apr 12, 2015, at 2:31 PM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:

> Sorry, I have had a number of personal functions this weekend which have keep me away from e-mail.
> 
> What we WILL accomplish by Thursday clearly remains to be seen. What we were charged with accomplishing was to recommend changes to the Root Zone management process as needed or desired for the transition to take place.
> 
> Currently the NTIA must approve all changes before they are released to be RZ Maintainer (Verisign) for implementation.
> 
> Since the NTIA will now be "out of the loop", we need to recommend:
> 
> - How the authorization function is to be replaces, if at all

Like Milton, I thought we'd been told it's not to be replaced.

> - What other changes do we recommend, if any, to compensate for the removal of the NTIA authorization

See my previous message-- I suggest we need to call out operational impacts of NTIA's stepping aside more generally. Non-operational aspects, i.e. the accountability enforced by having the contract in the first place, are out of scope for us; but I tried to suggest a couple of other factors we should look at, which may be outside the day-to-day operation (the authorization function) but are still relevant to IANA staff being able to do their jobs promptly and correctly.

> - What other improvements do we recommend making to address perceived weaknesses in the present process (despite the NTIA presence).

I'm not sure I follow. I seem to recall that we've been told a number of times now that people are happy with IANA's performance of its tasks. Encoding the current service expectations outside of the NTIA contract, so that they can continue to be met when the NTIA contract is gone, is the work of the SLE group, isn't it? 

If that's incorrect-- could you clarify what "perceived weaknesses" we need to address?

If it's roughly correct-- it seems to me that our role is largely a gap analysis: what dependencies on the NTIA contract for the root zone management function are *not* addressed by other design teams or the CCWG-Accountability? And what requirements are imposed on the other design teams or the CCWG-Accountability?

(I come to this task with a very operational orientation, so I assume that there's a specific set of tasks that IANA and the RZM partners need to perform, with or without the NTIA, in order to carry out their responsibility for a correct, up-to-date production root zone; and that we're making sure both that IANA and RZM staff can adjust their procedures so they still know what they're supposed to do in the absence of the NTIA contract, and that those responsible for oversight post-NTIA also understand their responsibility in detail, and can carry it out.)

> The NTIA has made it clear that any proposal officially submitted must be ready for implementation - no further design post-acceptance, so we MUST cover these areas before formal submission.

I think I have the same perspective on this that Milton does-- other operational communities tagged a couple of areas as subject to later implementation, turned in their proposals, and are working on the changes they identified as required between the initial proposal and transition. The CWG doesn't have quite as much time, but it still seems that we could do the same thing. (For example, we have to identify who has to update software so that the RZM workflow is correct without NTIA in the loop-- but there's no chance that will be done by Thursday, or even by June, and no need to do it on that schedule.)

If there's serious uncertainty about this, do we need to ask the ICG?

> We have been requested to flesh this out as much as possible in time for the publication of the next report, with an absolute cutoff by this coming Thursday.
> 
> I am hoping that we can make such a proposal, and you will see more from me in this later today.
> 
> In my mind, we do not have to reach closure on such a proposal, but we should have SOMETHING for the communities to comment on.

This seems like a reasonable goal if we're careful about what we're tackling.

I'm planning to be on the phone tomorrow morning. I will not be available tomorrow afternoon (US Eastern).


thanks,
Suzanne