[registrars] gTLD Registry Maintenance Notices

[Tim Ruiz]

All,

I realize we are dealing with many more important issues right now, but I'd
like to bring up the issue of gTLD Registry Maintenance notices for some
discussion.

Right now there is no standard form of email notice between the Registries.
In fact, there doesn't appear to even be a standard form of email notice
within a single registry.

We think it would be helpful if that changed. It is difficult otherwise to
have any automated process to parse this information. We would like to do
that in addition to having these notices find there their way to a human
reader. I think this is going to be a growing concern as the number of gTLDs
increases.

We would propose at least 1 and 2 of the following, but 3 & 4 may also be
helpful:

1. That there be a standard form of advance notice for gTLD Registry
outages. This notice would contain only outage information for the gTLDs
that are affected. If the Registry also manages ccTLDs, they would NOT be
included in these notices. For example, Go Daddy does not offer CN or TW,
yet we continue get notices for these intermingled with the BIZ notices.

2. That there be a standard form of notice for the START, EXTENDED, and
COMPLETED notifications sent during the outage. These for us are the most
important ones to be able to automate the parsing of.

3. That there be a new report (in a standard format) posted by each gTLD
registry that contains outage notifications as far in advance as they have
them planned. Of course, it would not be expected that it be updated during
an outage.

4. That planned outages be posted on the gTLD Website in a public ally
accessible form. For example, VeriSign requires logging in to their
Registrar Extranet to see these. We believe all registrants should have
access to at least the basic notification information.

I don't know if this would have to be a PDP. Perhaps it is something we
could negotiate with the Registry Constituency and get adopted as a Best
Practice.

Other ideas, suggestions?

Tim