Root Server System Advisory Committee
The Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) was created under the Article VII Section 3 (b) of the ICANN Bylaws which gave ICANN Board the mandate to appoint the initial Chairman of the Committee, after which the following chairman will be elected by the members of the committee. Jun Murai, who was one of the nine initial directors of the ICANN Board in 1998 was appointed chairman of RSSAC.[1]
Responsibility
RSSAC was delegated to advise the ICANN Board regarding the operational requirements of the root name servers of the Domain Name System (DNS) which include hardware capacities, operating systems, name server versions, network connectivity, physical environment as well as its security aspects. RSSAC was also tasked to review the number, location, and distribution of the root name server and its total system performance, robustness, and reliability.[2]
RSSAC Projects
Since its inception, the committee continuously performs projects under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)[3] between ICANN the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to conduct a collaborative study to address the operational and technical requirements of the root name servers to be able to establish a more robust and secure management of the Internet (DNS) root server system.[4]
The RSSAC was also involved in the Y2K Project between 1999 to 2000. Its objective is to make sure that the operations of the root nameserver system is in compliance with Y2K by conducting administrative services and testing.[5]
The committee is also conducting new technical developments on IPv6, DNSSEC, and IDN and their effects to the root nameserver system.
Independent Review on RSSAC
Article IV, Section 4, Paragraph 1 of the ICANN Bylaws stipulated that a review on the performance and operations of the RSSAC by an independent organization is required to determine if the committee is still serving its purpose in the ICANN structure of if certain changes in the structure or operations is necessary to improve its functions.[6] To be able to comply with the Bylaws, the ICANN Board issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) and Terms of Reference (TOR) to conduct and independent review on RSSAC on July 2008.[7] ICANN selected Westlake Consulting Limited (WCL) and on November of 2008, the company started performing face to face interviews with some individuals during the ICANN Meeting in Cairo and during the IETF meeting in Minnesota regarding RSSAC. WCL also conducted telephone interviews and accessed all available written-records regarding the committee. [8]
By April of 2009, WCL published its final report on the Independent Review on RSSAC with the following findings:
RSSAC Working Group
The RSSAC Working Group is composed of: