Accomplishing the agreement signed during the LACNIC X meeting, in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, on May of the current year, LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry), ISC (Internet Systems Consortium), AEPROVI (Internet Service Providers and Information Technologies Association, the NAP.EC administrator) and NIC.EC (Domain Registry .EC) installed today in Quito the fifth DNS Root Server for Latin America and the Caribbean, in the frame of +RAICES Project.
In the opening event that took place today August 14, participated the Chief Executive Officer of LACNIC Raul Echeberria, the President of the National Telecommunications Council (CONATEL) Juan Carlos Avilés, the representative of ISC Peter Losher, the President of AEPROVI Jorge Maldonado, the Executive Director of AEPROVI Francisco Balarezo, and the General Manager of NIC.EC Victor Abboud.
The installation of this copy, which is hosted by the NAP Ecuador, implies a suitable improvement in the direct access to the net by Ecuadorian users and Internet services providers. It is supported by LACNIC and received equipment from Cisco System.
The +Raices Project is an initiative undertaken by LACNIC jointly with the ISC to promote the installation of F Root Server copies in Latin America and the Caribbean. This project has enabled the installation of fifth copies in Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Panamá and Ecuador, which in turn has translated into noticeable improvements in direct network access for users and Internet service providers of these countries and a relevant contribution to the stability of the Internet both within the entire region as well as at global level.
This project is an example of the multistakeholder cooperation models promoted by the World Summit on the Information Society, one through which both government and private organizations can work collaboratively in benefit of Internet stability and growth in the region, goals to which LACNIC is strongly committed.
Likewise, with this project LACNIC is contributing to the achievement of the goals agreed by the Region's Governments (eLAC 2007) and which will be evaluated in November 2007 in El Salvador.
The domain name system (DNS) is made up by millions of interconnected servers. Root servers are the ones that possess the information that initiate queries to this system. A technical limitation does not allow the existence of more than thirteen root servers, and they are identified by the letters A through M. Of these thirteen original root servers, ten were located in the United States, two in Europe and one in Japan, a fact that generated quite a bit of concern in view of the small number of servers and their geographic concentration.
In order to solve this problem, during the past few years a new technique known as anycast is being used. This technique allows creating clones (known as mirrors) of these root servers; once these mirrors are in operation they are indistinguishable from the original servers. This adds more efficiency to the system and at the same time provides greater security and stability. The installations of the root servers are made by the anycast technology in the frame of +Raices project
As you may remember, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry (LACNIC) is the organization, based in Montevideo, which administrates IP address space, Autonomous System Numbers (ASN), reverse resolution and other resources for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), on behalf of the Internet community.
+Raices http://lacnic.net/en/raices/
