VeriSign's rapid DNS updates in .com/.net

Fri Jul 9 19:20:43 UTC 2004

VeriSign Naming and Directory Services (VNDS) currently generates new
versions of the .com/.net zones files twice per day.  VNDS is
scheduled to deploy on September 8, 2004 a new feature that will
enable VNDS to update the .com/.net zones more frequently to reflect
the registration activity of the .com/.net registrars in near real
time.  After the rapid DNS update is implemented, the elapsed time
from registrars' add or change operations to the visibility of those
adds or changes in all 13 .com/.net authoritative name servers is
expected to average less than five minutes.

The rapid update process will batch domain name adds and domain name
changes every few seconds.  The serial number in the .com/.net zones'
SOA records will increase with each batch of changes applied.  As
described in a message to the NANOG list in January [1], these serial
numbers are now based on UTC time encoded as the number of seconds
since the UNIX epoch (00:00:00 GMT, 1 January 1970).

VNDS will continue to publish .com/.net zone files twice per day as
part of the TLD Zone File Access Program. [2]  These zone files will
continue to reflect the state of the .com/.net registry database at
the moment zone generation begins.

VNDS does not anticipate any negative consequences of deployment of
rapid updates to the .com/.net zones.  However, as a courtesy we are
providing the Internet community with 60 days advance notice of the
change to the update process.

Some questions and answers about rapid updates for .com/.net are
available at http://www.verisign.com/nds/naming/rapid_update/faq.html.

Matt
--
Matt Larson <mlarson at verisign.com>
VeriSign Naming and Directory Services

[1] http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2004-01/msg00115.html

[2] http://www.verisign.com/nds/naming/tld/