DENIC starts operation of the first of its two new computer centres

The more than 11 million .de domains are getting a new home. On 11 September 2007, DENIC officially puts into operation the first of two new computer centres, from where .de domains will be administered in the future. The change-over to the new computer centre is the first essential step within the scope of a comprehensive infrastructure project, which is designed to adapt the complete network and computer centre structure of the German domain registry to the growing demands of the coming years. The domain holder will not notice anything of the change-over. All .de domains can be fully used throughout the whole procedure.

The project aims at developing an ideal technical design based on the existing DENIC service structures and those planned for the future. Starting from this concept, DENIC chose areas for establishing two independent computer centres in Frankfurt, Germany, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with professional housing providers. The new network concept facilitates a quick and fail-proof synchronization of the data bases in both computer centres. For this purpose, a flexible network structure, which offers sufficient redundancies and provides for easy expansion, has been developed. Each of the computer centres can provide all services of DENIC with even the hardware being designed as a redundant feature. For the basic services, redundancy has already applied in the past. In the future, all services can rely on it. “Where we had one server per computer centre in the past, there will now be two of them,” explained Andreas Bäß. As the member of DENIC’s Executive Board responsible for technical matters he has overall control of the project. “In addition to better system stability, the redundancy greatly improves the situation with regard to system maintenance. We are expecting a strong increase in name server queries, utilization of whois, and domain requests. DENIC is now perfectly equipped for that.”

DENIC has always offered its services from two computer centres. One of them was located with a housing provider, the other in the headquarters of the registry. “However, we do not consider the operation of a high-security computer centre as our core competence,” says Andreas Bäß. “The move allows us to concentrate on what we think is our main task: the rendering of high-quality services in the field of domain administration.”

For the new computer centre in Frankfurt, DENIC has purchased a complete new hardware equipment, which has meant investments of several million euros. The computers that will maintain DENIC’s day-to-day operations in the previously used computer centre until the change-over is complete will be moved to Amsterdam at a later date and then be integrated into the second computer centre located there. Also for that site, DENIC will purchase new hardware worth several million euros. “Computer centres geographically located far away from each other are the international standard for major registries today. Like Frankfurt, Amsterdam is an important Internet node with very good connections. It is far enough not be concerned by larger catastrophes that may hit Frankfurt. On the other hand it is close enough to be reached quickly by DENIC staff members by different means of transportation, if necessary”, stated Andreas Bäß as a reason, why Amsterdam has been selected as the second computer centre site.