This test group is now CLOSED.

This is the home page for the now closed operational working group on the data restructuring proposals.  Most of the work of this group was conducted via the mailing list.  Membership of this group was open to all.

Chair
Jay Daley  jay@nominet.org.uk

Mailing lists
The mailing list is now closed but the archive of the messages sent to this list is available.

Description
We are about to embark on a major data restructuring exercise. This is necessary for the following reasons

• We are unable to provide simple joined up services without joining up the underlying data.
• Our current data structure has led to a proliferation of out of date information being stored on the register.
• New international standards being developed are increasingly dependent on a more sophisticated data structure (for example EPP for registering domains and CRISP for an alternative to WHOIS).

• Each company, organisation or person that deals with Nominet will now receive an account. Onto this account can go any service they take out with us, including being a registrant, a tagholder a PRSS subscriber or one of a number of other services.
• The registrant details will no longer be held on a per-domain basis but on a per-account basis and all of the domains for a particular registrant will go onto the same account.
• The details of contacts held within the system will be joined up and more contacts will be allowed for each particular role than before. For example a tagholder will now be allowed up to nine admin contacts per tag.

There are no policy changes as a result of this data restructuring, though it does mean significant changes in the interfaces used by tagholders and so has been to the PAB for that reason. It will however make it easier to introduce possible policy changes as our current data structure is fairly rigid and inflexible.

This proposal could have implications for the discussions on lock states as new functionality may now be possible that requires the use of a lock state to make it work in an acceptable fashion. If any other policy implications are discovered then they will need to be passed by the PAB and the CoM before being implemented.

Consultation on this proposal will be managed by the Executive with the aim to reach as many tagholders as possible in the process. A full communications plan will be put in place given the extensive nature of the changes being proposed.

Goals and milestones

• Review of the requirements/principles/restrictions as discussed in the main paper.
• Review of the details of the proposal in the main paper.
• Additional methods for simplifying how end users interact with the new data structure.
• Pre-implementation data tidy up plan.
• Data migration plan (though this may wait until later).
• Identification of any policy issues that need to go to the PAB before being implemented.

Documents

• The first version of the proposal is available in PDF (249KB)  format.
• The second version of the proposal is available in PDF (464KB) format.  These both display the tracked changes since the first version.
• The third version of the proposal is available in PDF (524KB) format.  These both display the tracked changes since the second version.