Request for trusted party to provide secondary DNS services for the RIPE NCC’s zones
Dear colleagues, The RIPE NCC requests proposals for service from a DNS service provider in order to improve the resiliency of the RIPE NCC's zones, especially ripe.net. The submission deadline is Sunday, 14 August 2016. For more details please see: https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/request-for-trusted-par... Kind regards, Romeo Zwart RIPE NCC
On 25 Jul 2016, at 15:59, Romeo Zwart <romeo.zwart@ripe.net> wrote:
The RIPE NCC requests proposals for service from a DNS service provider in order to improve the resiliency of the RIPE NCC's zones, especially ripe.net.
The submission deadline is Sunday, 14 August 2016.
For more details please see:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/request-for-trusted-par...
Thanks for this Romeo. The above URL doesn’t say very much. Could you please provide some more details? Are you expecting fully-baked and costed proposals by the mid-August deadline or just expressions of interest by then? What sort of service levels and commitments are the NCC looking for from potential suppliers? eg: a 24x7 NOC, SLAs, minimum/maximum query rates, anycast/unicast provision, server location(s), diversity of DNS software, statistics/logging, incident handling & escalation, mandatory/optional protocol requirements, support for DNS features like RRL, etc, etc. Which things on this sort of shopping list are essential/desirable/optional? It seems unrealistic/unreasonable to ask for responses when there’s so little information on what bidders are expected to be quoting on. Or what the "small number of additional zones” might be. [Do they include “.” or subdomains of .arpa? :-)] Or what is meant by a small number. I also think it’s a bit optimistic to give bidders just three weeks to prepare their responses. More so during peak holiday season. Why the rush?
Hi Jim, Thanks for the quick response. On 16/07/25 17:42 , Jim Reid wrote:
On 25 Jul 2016, at 15:59, Romeo Zwart <romeo.zwart@ripe.net> wrote:
The RIPE NCC requests proposals for service from a DNS service provider in order to improve the resiliency of the RIPE NCC's zones, especially ripe.net.
The submission deadline is Sunday, 14 August 2016.
For more details please see:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/announcements/request-for-trusted-par...
Thanks for this Romeo.
The above URL doesn’t say very much. Could you please provide some more details?
As expressed on the page mentioned above, the intention of the process is that interested parties respond to the email address quoted to be sent the detailed RfP document. I'd invite you to do so if you are interested to provide services. :)
Are you expecting fully-baked and costed proposals by the mid-August deadline or just expressions of interest by then?
The mid-August deadline is for full proposals.
What sort of service levels and commitments are the NCC looking for from potential suppliers? eg: a 24x7 NOC, SLAs, minimum/maximum query rates, anycast/unicast provision, server location(s), diversity of DNS software, statistics/logging, incident handling & escalation, mandatory/optional protocol requirements, support for DNS features like RRL, etc, etc. Which things on this sort of shopping list are essential/desirable/optional?
We have tried to make these requirements as clear as possible, including distinctions between mandatory and optional elements, and we have documented those in the document that will be sent on request.
It seems unrealistic/unreasonable to ask for responses when there’s so little information on what bidders are expected to be quoting on. Or what the "small number of additional zones” might be. [Do they include “.” or subdomains of .arpa? :-)] Or what is meant by a small number.
It would indeed be unrealistic to expect detailed responses based on the limited information that is on the mentioned web page. That is clearly not our expectation.
I also think it’s a bit optimistic to give bidders just three weeks to prepare their responses. More so during peak holiday season. Why the rush?
We are expecting experienced and professional service providers to respond, who have the required infrastructure and service machinery in place and for whom three weeks will be a suitable period to respond. Kind regards, Romeo
On 25 Jul 2016, at 16:56, Romeo Zwart <romeo.zwart@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the quick response.
On 16/07/25 17:42 , Jim Reid wrote:
The above URL doesn’t say very much. Could you please provide some more details?
As expressed on the page mentioned above, the intention of the process is that interested parties respond to the email address quoted to be sent the detailed RfP document.
Well, it would be nice if the web page actually said something like “interested parties can get the RFP documention by contacting the NCC at...”. :-) BTW, it makes sense not to publish the RFP bumf at this stage in case it encourages members of the WG to try to micro-manage what is an implementation/operational matter for the NCC. Though in the interests of openness and transparency it might be worthwhile publishing that document once the service provider(s) has been chosen.
I'd invite you to do so if you are interested to provide services. :)
Hell no! I have enough trouble looking after my own zones without looking after the NCC’s too. :-)
We have tried to make these requirements as clear as possible, including distinctions between mandatory and optional elements, and we have documented those in the document that will be sent on request.
Great! It’s a pity this isn’t mentioned in the announcement.
It would indeed be unrealistic to expect detailed responses based on the limited information that is on the mentioned web page. That is clearly not our expectation.
I’m glad to hear that Romeo. Though until your recent clarification email, I fear you may well have given prospective bidders that impression.
I also think it’s a bit optimistic to give bidders just three weeks to prepare their responses. More so during peak holiday season. Why the rush?
We are expecting experienced and professional service providers to respond, who have the required infrastructure and service machinery in place and for whom three weeks will be a suitable period to respond.
It’s always fun to make bidders sweat a bit and watch them squirm. :-) I’ve done it myself more than a few times when running RFPs. However you may well be pushing things to get good quality bids in such a short time-frame when just about everyone will be on holiday. I’d like to be proven wrong about that.
Hi Jim, On 16/07/25 18:49 , Jim Reid wrote:
On 25 Jul 2016, at 16:56, Romeo Zwart <romeo.zwart@ripe.net> wrote:
[..]
We have tried to make these requirements as clear as possible, including distinctions between mandatory and optional elements, and we have documented those in the document that will be sent on request.
Great! It’s a pity this isn’t mentioned in the announcement.
It would indeed be unrealistic to expect detailed responses based on the limited information that is on the mentioned web page. That is clearly not our expectation.
I’m glad to hear that Romeo. Though until your recent clarification email, I fear you may well have given prospective bidders that impression.
Thanks for those comments! We will add some clarifying text to the web page. Cheers, Romeo
participants (2)
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Jim Reid -
Romeo Zwart