On Wednesday, 10 Sep 2003, Daniel Karrenberg writes: Daniel

While we so far have only monitored TLDs with whome we have some contact, we can certainly also monitor any TLD if there is an expressed interest from the RIPE community. Thechnically this is no problem at all. Configuring it takes all of 5 minutes and even the alpha version of the analysis web site on the development server box can easily take the load.

Here the views of a (small) ccTLD (CH): 1. Monitoring TLD name servers from different points on earth in a, let's say 'standardized' way, and publish such data is welcome. The points to clarify here are: standardized and 'such', the later designating a subset of all possible measurements or everything. The standardization aspect is is IMO more interesting: we need an RFC for these measurements. 2. Since this kind of monitoring can be bought from e.g. UltraDNS, it may be wise not enter in any competition, meaning it should have a price tag. 3. If it has aprice tag, people will want to know what to get for the money, meaning an SLA is required. An SLA is a contract with technical, organizational, legal and administrative definitions. 4. It is to be determined if RIPE NCC is the appropriate org to offer such services. Good: neutral, professional, some hard- and software already in place and can be used; bad: not really RIPE's core business, the competition with commercial firms. How about a RIPE-spin-off, Netlabs, etc. ? Summary: desirable service, still much to be defined. Marcel