[DTA - SLE] An update on the work of the SLE group

[Paul M Kane - CWG]

Apologies for the silence, at a personal level it has been a traumatic three
weeks and I am only now (slowly) re-surfacing.


Firstly, I would like to thank Kim Davies from IANA, Bernie Turcotte from ICANN
and Adam Smith from my staff for the constructive manner in which progress is
being made on the SLE document. Adam stepped in with the agreement of DT-A
members to keep the momentum during my period of absence as we are all keen to
conclude the SLE document. Rest assured that members of DT-A all share a similar
vision and are working well together, recognize that the SLE is a keystone
document and on the 8th June members of DT-A and IANA/ICANN will have another
telephone conference to identify where additional work is needed.

Secondly, I'd like to confirm that DTA is _not_ suggesting *any* process
"improvements" or "changes".
We are capturing the current process, documenting it as best we can and
determining the performance matrix for the process.
Our focus has been on those Registries that interact with IANA electronically
via the RZM service.  We hope to be able to provide an SLE document for those
Registries that do not use the RZM preferring to send letters or faxes or phone
calls to request/authorise changes, and more time will be needed to address this
minority IANA user community. We are trying to avoid discriminatory practice but
obviously inefficient interactions with IANA does add delay to the process which
is not IANA's fault.

Third, it is vital that IANA services are delivered to all Registries whether
gTLDs or ccTLDs, contracted or non-contracted, on a equal, impartial and
efficient basis. 
To avoid IANA being the subject of claims of expediting the changes of one
registry operator in preference to another, DT-A and IANA share the view there
should be a distinction between metrics that should be collected to support
general analysis, versus those which are the critical metrics that are
considered important to set specific thresholds for judging breaches in ICANN’s
ability to provide an appropriate non-discriminatory level of service.

Fourth, there may be those in the community that want a vague SLE that does not
follow professional standards for efficient operation.  IANA specifically don't
want that and have committed to provide attributable metrics for the party
responsible for that particular process.   DT-A support IANA in this and in
post-transition world, without the (perceived) liability protection of the US
Government "validating" change requests - there may be parties who seek redress
from ICANN/IANA (alleging) non-performance when the problem is outside of IANA's
control. 

Consequently, the SLE seeks to define the process and specific measures against
which specific thresholds should be set, with an expectation that the IANA
Functions Operator will normally perform within the threshold.  Where there is
an inability to meet the threshold, it will be identified, resulting in
follow-up with the Customer Standing Committee to identify the cause, and
whether the issues is within IANA's control. Regular unexplained inability to
meet the thresholds may result in remedial action and it is anticipated the
thresholds will be modified over time as part of periodic reviews of the service
level expectation.

For those registries wanting DT-A to define the process for end-to-end
automation - an API for interacting with IANA - that is outside the scope of
this Design Team and may be addressed post transition.

Our goal is to work with IANA to capture a workable SLE that reassures all
parties there is no room for discriminatory practice and the broader community
can be confident that IANA will continue to deliver exemplary service post
transition.

I am optimistic there will be a draft released following our next call and DT-A
will continue to work with IANA after the 8th June to refine the SLE and
incorporate as much of IANA's sub-processes as possible.

I hope to be on today's call but I will not have Internet access between the end
of the call and our call with IANA on Monday so please do not expect email
replies in the intervening period.

Best

Paul