SIDN

The client

As a registry since 1996, The Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland SIDN  (www.sidn.nl) is responsible for the stable and secure operation of the top level domain .nl (Netherlands). This market-independent organization registers .nl domain names and makes sure that the domain names are easily accessible. With more than 5 million domain names, the .nl domain is the fifth largest country domain in the world. The organization employs around 80 people.

One of the founders of SIDN is Internet pioneer Piet Beertema, who in 1986 was given a country domain for the Netherlands by the American Internet pioneer Jon Postel. Following a sharp rise in the number of Internet users in the Netherlands, SIDN was established to professionally handle the registration and management of the .nl domain.

The request

In 2013, SIDN noted an increase in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. SIDN was also concerned about its strength. In order to proactively anticipate these developments and any negative consequences for the .nl domain, SIDN decided to distribute its DNS anycast technology 'in the field' to internet-related parties such as telecom and hosting providers, with market parties that agree to this.

While Domain Name System (DNS) technology is used to translate computer domain names into numerical IP addresses and vice versa, DNS Anycast technology is a method of serving DNS records in duplicate and geographically distributed - increasing availability. SIDN is the first registry in Europe to provide additional security for a national top-level domain (TLD) and increase availability by also integrating this technology into the IP networks of internet-related parties. SIDN was the first market player to approach LeaseWeb because of the size of the hosting company and the size of the worldwide network. buys and sells digital advertising space for websites and mobile apps.

The Solution

Leaseweb made the required data center facilities available free of charge by means of a zero-euro contract. In addition to a fully-fledged .nl name server, the DNS Anycast technology delivered to Leaseweb also includes a switch, a firewall, plus a node. In order to install the technology, Leaseweb made colocation rack space at one of its Dutch data centers available to SIDN, including redundant power supply, network access, and 1 Gbps capacity on a state-of-the-art worldwide IP network. The technology is directly linked to the IP backbone.Since then, five other major Internet companies have also responded favorably to SIDN’s request to implement the DNS Anycast technology locally.
 

SIDN also found eight Internet companies willing to make a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) link with SIDN via Internet exchange AMS-IX. However, the market participants approached by SIDN are required to comply with a number of qualification criteria and technical requirements.For one thing, like Leaseweb, they need to have substantial scope.
 

The local presence of SIDN’s DNS anycast technology with market participants such as Leaseweb significantly enhances the availability of the .nl domain. Imagine SIDN’s .nl service is affected by DDoS attacks; for Leaseweb customers the .nl domain will remain available as normal thanks to this local routing technology. This means that a substantial part of the business market in the Netherlands is not affected, and can continue to make uninterrupted use of the .nl domain.