Infrastructure Description

Computer Networking: Global Infrastructure for the 21st Century
By Vint Cerf

Administration

The overall responsibility for managing Internet Protocol address or domain names at upper levels is vested in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which delegates the actual administration of most functions to other bodies.

At global regional levels, the principal bodies providing allocation and registration services that support the operation of the Internet globally are:

  • RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre)
  • ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers)
  • APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre)
  • LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry)
  • AfriNIC (African Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources)

Internet Operations

Internet operations are coordinated worldwide through the Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG), an Internet operational group intended to assist Internet Service Providers to interoperate within the Global Internet. At global regional levels, bodies active in coordinating operations include the:

Internet Security

Internet network security is significantly facilitated by a number of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in eight countries and within a number of service provider operations and private networks. They were formed to continually monitor the network for security incidents, serve as a repository for information about such incidents, and develop responsive advisories.

The CERTs are coordinated by the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.

Building its International Presence

  • Alis Technologies
    Founded in 1981, Alis Technologies Inc. develops standards for Multilingual Information Management Solutions (MIMS )with the IETF (Internet Engeneering Task Force), the Unicode Consortium, W3C and LISA.
  • Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Committee
    Working group to study making domain names available in character sets other than ASCII.
  • MINC (Multilingual Internet Names Consortium)
    A non-profit, non-governmental, international organization. It focuses on the promotion of multilingualisation of Internet names, including Internet domain names and keywords, internationalization of Internet names standards and protocols, technical coordination and liaison with other international bodies.
  • CNNIC (China Network Information Center)
  • KRNIC (Korea Network Information Center)
    Established the system for managing Internet address resources in Korea.
  • TWNIC (Taiwan Network Infomation Center)
    The unique neutral and non-profit organization that takes charge of the domain name registration and IP address allocation in Taiwan.
  • The Unicode Consortium
    Responsible for defining the behavior and relationships between Unicode characters, and providing technical information to implementers. The Consortium cooperates with ISO in refining the specification and expanding the character set.

Internet Connectivity

  • Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC)
    Database about international networking developments and Internet connectivity providers, with major emphasis on countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Oceania. Information is available on country-by-country basis and includes connectivity providers, networking infrastructure, and other country-specific information.
  • Connectivity Table from University of Wisconsin’s FTP server
    Lists entities with and without international network connectivity. Shows countries (with ISO two letter country code (ISO 3166)) which have:

    • international IP Internet links
    • domestic UUCP sites which are connected to the Global Multiprotocol Open Internet, and
    • domestic FIDONET sites which are connected to the Global Multiprotocol Open Internet.
    • Connectivity Maps
  • Internet Hosts Map
    Shows the millions of Internet hosts worldwide as of January 1999.