> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Stark [mailto:ronstark§businesspark.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 3:50 PM
> To: dns§lists.auda.org.au
> Subject: [DNS] Fulfilment speed
> 
> 
> My only real issue at the moment is that it takes 2-3 days 
> now to get a new
> .com.au registered, whereas previously it was only 2-3 hours.
> 
> Anybody know why?  I would have thought that now the 
> registration process is
> spread across more registries, it would be correspondingly faster.
> 

There are several issues tied up with this question.  Firstly the total time
it takes to register a domain name can comprise the processing time of:
- reseller
- registrar
- registry

There are effectively no manual processes at the registry, so particular
transactions such as domain name creation occur in seconds.

A registrar needs to carry out policy checks and check some external
databases such as ASIC (http://www.asic.gov.au). A registrar must also
format data received from a reseller or registrant, and send it to the
registry.  These steps will vary by registrar in the level of automation.
Some registrars have almost complete automation and others have almost none.
If the work is done entirely manually, the time taken will be a function of
the number of applications that have come in, and the number of staff
available to process them.

A reseller has the same issues as a registrar except, that a reseller does
not need to do policy compliance checks (although a reseller may do so as a
service for their customers on the basis that once they have done the checks
it is likely that the name will proceed to registration - e.g a trademark
attorney may do this).  A reseller needs to collect data and format it in
whatever form is required by the registrar.

At the purely technical level, the time to process a com.au application
today should not be any different (either faster or slower) than the time it
took to process in the past.  What has changed is that the new technologies
should be more reliable and scalable in the long term.  In the short term
there will be software issues that result from any major new deployment.

If you are a reseller or registrant of Melbourne IT, the time taken to
process domain name applications have been affected by three main issues:
- software problems within a major new deployment of Melbourne IT software
- software problems within the new registry
- an unexpected demand for new com.au applications resulting from the
changed names policy

The software problems are common for any new major deployment of software.
There are usually manual work arounds once a problem is identified.  The
issue then becomes one of scale.  Melbourne IT currently services over
200,000 com.au domain names, and any manual workarounds quickly create back
logs.  The unexpected demand has exaggerated these.

We presently have a backlog of applications that have been affected by some
software problems which we are working through.  We presently expect a turn
around time of around 24 hours for most new applications, but some
applications may take around 3-5 days if the data in the application is
unusual.  When all our software development and processes are complete, we
expect to be able to process applications within minutes.

Melbourne IT apologises for any inconvenience to registrants and/or
resellers from the delays in processing.  We hope to return to a level of
service better than was available prior to 1 July 2002 shortly.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin