Domainbox.com to run .cymru, .wales domain platform

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/domainboxcom-to-run-cymru-wales-domain-platform--940667

Domainbox.com to run .cymru, .wales domain platform
Tuesday 30 April 2013 | 15:07 CET | News

Nominet Registrar Services, subsidiary set up by Nominet to provide a reseller system for .cymru and .wales domains, has selected Domainbox.com to run the .cymru / .wales reseller platform. Domainbox.com is a cloud based wholesale domain name registration and management platform owned by Host Europe Group. The .wales and .cymru domains are due to launch as part of ICANN's new Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) programme in 2014. The reseller system will allow registrars who are not ICANN accredited to resell .wales and .cymru domain names via NRS. The Domainbox.com platform will allow resellers to register and manage domain names via a comprehensive SOAP and/or EPP based interface or via a Web 2.0 administrative portal.

 

That's odd, why not use in house systems? They have changed the system to use standard EPP, so why pass it out to a 3rd party when the current systems can "speak" generic EPP? I wonder how much HE will be making out of this

 

http://news.domainbox.com/host-europe-acquires-domainbox/

DomainBox owned by HostEurope, Host Europe have a Director on the Nominet Board. Host Europe got hacked and covered it up, millions of customers at risk.

Why wouldn't this company be selected for the task

 

Really a piss poor decision that needs justification. Why spend all that time & money only to farm it out when they have arguably the best EPP capable infrastructure!

And to host europe where there is a decided conflict of interests. And why weren't the membership pre-informed of this?

 

An awarded contract to hush people up?

 

So why the change from Nominet EPP to standard EPP if we're going to be using a 3rd party system?

It is also odd that there is an announcement about the award on a news site yet the Nominet .wales seems to have nothing on the matter.

 

I know the statement from Nominet angers a lot of people. For those who think things have gone quiet on the action against the people at Nominet, they haven't. Things are progressing (better than I hoped), but mostly in the background now because that is where things are most affective.

There are a lot of things that are still ongoing.....

 

Good to hear!

 

Yep - was wondering that myself - so good to hear things are moving along nicely.

Announcements like this one above - show their arrogance and complete disregard for members/stakeholders...

TW

 

Did anyone recall this going out to competitive tender? Was anyone on here invited to bid for this?

If not I'm about to make another complaint to the authorities.... In addition to other issues with this bid.

 

I've not seen anything on Nominet web site or the member mailing lists, haven't been on the forum for ages.

 

It doesn't really surprise me that Nominet have not used an in house system. It would have taken more time and money to build everything required to run a full ICANN accreddited registrar including a good reseller systems than to buy in something such as DomainBox. There are other companies that offer this kind of thing. The http://www.logicboxes.com/ is one I've known about for a long time. I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least evaluated.

Nominet's existing systems are built around how .uk operates. Even though they can all speak EPP, there would still be plenty of work required to build a reseller and registrant system that worked with gTLDs rather than how .uk functions. It probably doesn't make sense to do that thesedays with the likes of off the shelf solutions.

In respect of Nominet retiring its propriatory EPP. I expect many Nominet members use standard EPP elsewhere and wondered why Nominet had decided to use its own. This eventually encouraged Nominet to support standard EPP in addition to its propriatory EPP and, as more people used it, to eventually consider retiring the propriatory EPP. I don't doubt that the retirement of Nominet's propriatory EPP will have annoyed drop catchers more than other Nominet members because dropcatchers would likely have been some of the first members to build systems to support Nominet propriatory EPP. They are now being forced to change. Let's not forget that most dropcatchers probably only make use of a subset of the EPP. Larger registrars, wanting to migrate from the automaton to EPP, would use the full schema and might prefer to make use of standard EPP commands as they do elsewhere.

 

Why would they look for bids? Why wouldn't they consider the solutions on the market and then choose the one they preferred?

 

Nominet propriatory EPP came first. Some time later standard EPP came along too and both could be used, I believe. The larger registrars would probably have been clammering for standards. Eventually when the majority of communication has moved to standard EPP, why continue supporting propriatory EPP? It doesn't really make sense to continue support and developing both.

 

I think the EPP element is only used for communicating with the registry. Obviously in the case of .wales and .cymru Nominet is the registy. What they have bought in is an off the shelf solution for resellers and perhaps end users to be able to register and manage domain names. It's a front end for the EPP commands that are sent to the registry that they operate. There's probably no point building that oneself thesedays to operate an ICANN accreddited registrar. Tried and tested solutions with all the features already exist from multiple companies.

 

here's nominet's press release. says it went to competitive tender:

http://www.nominet.org.uk/news/press-releases/nominet-registrar-services-selects-domainboxcom

 

Ok, at least there's some clarity. I'll have to have a look now at all the specs etc to see what's involved.

 

lol mate, you trying to get me in court again? Things are going so well on that score I really don't want to rock the boat by answering that haha.