September 24, 2018
It seems a world record for the number of domain names transferred is now a thing - and the record goes to a major Australian project.
In late June this year, registry operations for the .au name space were transferred from AusRegistry to Afilias, which involved the transition of 3.1 million Australian domain names to the new operator. The new system for .au went live on Sunday, July 1, 2018. The exercise was seamless, with many registrants of Australian names not even aware it was occurring.
A critical aspect of the transition was ensuring all .au websites, email, and other related services continued to function as normal throughout the transition. Moving the records of all the domains from the previous system to the new one occurred within just a few hours
The mammoth effort has been recognised by Guinness World Records as the (official title) : "Largest Migration of an Internet Top-Level Domain in a Single Transition"
"It may not sound sexy, but the award is a significant achievement”, said au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) CEO, Cameron Boardman. auDA is the policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space.
“The .au namespace is so ubiquitous that people take it for granted, but the migration from our previous registry operator to Afilias Australia could have had serious consequences for the economy, but it went seamlessly."
"Serious consequences" if things went pear-shaped was not an exaggeration. Australia's digital economy could have ground to a halt. The .au name space is an essential element of national digital infrastructure and it breaking would have also seen negative impacts around the world.
Afilias is understandably quite chuffed about the migration's success and the Guinness World Record it now holds.
“We have transitioned and upgraded many top-level domains but are especially proud of the .au project due to its size and complexity," said Ram Mohan, EVP and CTO of Afilias.
The former (non-Guinness) record was the transition of 2.7 million .org names in 2003, which was also executed by Afilias.
Victorian Minister for Innovation and the Digital Economy, Philip Dalidakis also applauded the success of the project.
“This transition highlights the great technical capability we have here in Melbourne and I congratulate auDA and Afilias Australia on this great achievement which will ensure the smooth functioning of the millions of websites that underpin the Australian economy.”
Related: A Brief History Of .AU
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