Domaincheck shall replace whois information service – New standard was developed in close collaboration with DENIC

Starting 23 September 2008, DENIC will place at disposal an implementation of the so-called "Domaincheck" service. So DENIC will be the first domain registry to break new ground in this field: It plans to substitute the high-performance Domaincheck (DCHK) for the known information service whois in the medium term. The DCHK specification, published at the start of 2008, is based on the IRIS standard (Internet Registry Information Service), which needed several years of intensive work to be established. As a member of the IETF Working Group CRISP (Cross Registry Information Service Protocol), DENIC's employee Marcos Sanz took a leading role in formulating IRIS.

The Domaincheck offers the Internet user numerous advantages. One fundamental benefit is the fact that it uses XML (Extensible Markup Language) for the standardized and structured query of a domain's availability. At present, the whois servers of the various registries respond to queries in different ways. This is due in particular to the lack of a standardized format of the queries and responses and to the fact that the stored information is output in an unstructured way. So access software has to be able to process all those response types. With the standardized request and response schemes of IRIS it will become much easier to develop new applications, which can also be used more universally. Querying domain data-bases of various Top Level Domains will also be greatly facilitated, since the clients will be able to identify the correct server automatically on the basis of the information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS).

The Domaincheck also offers economic benefits to the registries. Using the IRIS-LWZ protocol, which does not only provide the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for a speedy exchange of data but also a special compression algorithm, leads to a reduction in server data traffic, in particular in case of large query volumes, as they are common in nearly all registries today. This increases the availability of the service, which in turn is beneficial to the Internet user.

The pilot implementation of DENIC currently is the only one that makes the Domaincheck function available. To enable the user to query the server, DENIC places at disposal a client with user manual for downloading under http://domaincheck.denic.de. The servers as well as the access program will be gradually developed into a fully efficient IRIS service.