The Technical Center of Internet (russian: Технический центр Интернет, TCI) is a

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

-based organization founded in 2009 providing

technical support Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical supp ...

of Russian national

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined ** Domain of definition of a partial function ** Natural domain of a partial function ** Domain of holomorphy of a function * ...

.ru .ru is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Russia introduced on 7 April 1994. The Russian alphabet internationalized country code is .рф. Control of .ru is assigned to the Coordination Center for TLD ...

.рф The domain name .рф (romanized as ''.rf''; abbreviation of ) is the Cyrillic country code top-level domain for the Russian Federation, in the Domain Name System of the Internet. In the Domain Name System it has the ASCII DNS name . The domain ...

, and

.su .su is an Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was designated for the Soviet Union (USSR) on 19 September 1990. Even though the Soviet Union itself was dissolved a mere 15 months later, the .su top-level domain remains in use to ...

. The TCI provides service for the main registration system of national Russian domains, supports the

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...

infrastructure of the Russian segment of the internet, deals with the registrars accredited in the Russian national domains. The organization maintains service contracts with the registrars, and provides them with technical support through

license agreement A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

s signed with the Coordination Center and the FID.

History

1992 - 1998

The TCI took over technical support of Russian national domains, which previously were under the Russian Institute for Public Networks’ (RIPN) management. In 1992, the RIPN obtained the status of a public

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

, with the objective of developing internet infrastructure and scientific networks, as well as administration of national domains .su and .ru. This was followed by the centralized registration of the original list of domains, which consisted of geographical domains and

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used ...

s of the generic domains: com.ru, edu.ru, gov.ru, among others. The RIPN turned to the technical support of the Russian segment of the Internet and to the registration of second-level domains in zone .ru, while the Steering Group was busy developing the operational provisions for this zone. From 1994 - 1998, the number of Internet users rapidly increased, leading to the growth of the Russian internet to expand beyond scientific and academic networks, into news sites, electronic libraries,

search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...

s, and commercial web sites.

1999 - 2008

In 1999, The Steering Group's changed the

domain registration Domain registration is the process of acquiring a domain name from a domain name registrar. History In 1993 the U.S. Department of Commerce, in conjunction with several public and private entities, created InterNIC to maintain a central databa ...

in zone .ru, and created the Institute of Independent Registrars: while also remaining the technical center of the Russian top level national domain .ru. The RIPN transferred its functions of domains registration to independent companies while maintaining access to the registry. RU-CENTER, the RIPN’s subsidiary company, became the first registrar in January 2001. In 2002, The Steering Group disbanded and transferred its functions to an independent non-profit organization, The Coordination Center for TLD RU, to undertake the development of terms and conditions and organization of all activities in domain .ru. RIPN continued to serve as the technical support of Russian national domains, but by 2009 the Russian internet structure had grown too large for RIPN to manage.

2009 - current

The TCI was founded in 2009 by two Russian registries – ANO “The Coordination Center for TLD RU” and the Foundation for Internet Development (FID), which are administrators of the

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains ...

s .ru (until 2018), .рф, and .su. Its creation was primarily due to the accelerating growth rate of

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. ...

s in domains .ru and .su from 2007 to 2009. The

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...

domain .РФ was also launched, which required technical support. At the time, the ANO Coordination Center for TLD RU and the Foundation for Internet Development (FID) decided to create the Technical Center of Internet as an organization, which would focus entirely on the technical support of the Russian domain space. The RIPN has transferred these functions to the TCI, focusing primarily on research. In 2018, the Coordinating Center of the national .ru domain transferred the function of the domain registry operator to the structure of

Rostelecom Rostelecom is Russia’s largest provider of digital services for a wide variety of consumers, households, private businesses, government and municipal authorities, and other telecom providers. Rostelecom interconnects all local public operators� ...

Technological platform

The TCI is responsible for resilience of the principal resource of the Internet in Russia. The TCI manages the automatic electronic system of registration and administration of domains .ru, .su, .рф and technical means needed to provide primary service for these domains’ DNS servers. The network of DNS

nameserver A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...

s for the allocation of second-level domain zones is located not only in Russia but worldwide. Its operability, by a contract with the TCI, is ensured by the operator of a group of regional Internet Exchange Points (IXes) – MSK-IX, which also connects to the Internet and ensures external network protection of software and hardware complex of the RU/РФ/SU registration system. The Moscow and St. Petersburg TCI nodes are connected by dual communication channels operating two different fiber optic systems, as well as with fully independent access to the Internet and connection to the Moscow and St. Petersburg IXes. The system's support is ensured by the proper service of

systems administrator A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensu ...

s, as well as by the service of 24/7

network monitoring Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of outages or other trouble. Network monitori ...

. Each node's equipment is duplicated. Only one node is operable at a time, and the second one is on hot standby. In the event the first node fails the second one steps in. In the event of maintenance works at one of the nodes, functioning proceeds as stated before.

Security

The Moscow network node facility has a layered security system: the perimeter of the entire territory of the Russian Research Center (the Kurchatov Institute) is guarded, the building is provided with independent round–the-clock security, and the data processing center KIAEHOUSE has a check-point system and 24/7 video surveillance. The data center is equipped with a modern fire-fighting system that uses an inert gas, which is harmless to the equipment in case of activation. The computer center building of the Oktiabrskaya Railway Company represents secured premises of the technological complex, which boasts of robust industrial systems of ensuring equipment resilience. The distributed network of DNS nodes located in 7 Russian federal okrugs, as well as in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

has reiterative redundancy at the hardware and network levels, optimal connectivity of the DNS nodes with networks of Russian and foreign operators and 24/7 technical support, which ensures service accessibility at 99.99% from any

Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Inter ...

point.

Location

The Network of the domain names registration system is a geographically distributed structure. Technologically similar nodes are located in

and

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The second node is located in St. Petersburg on a technological platform of the data center of the Oktiabrskaya Railway's computer center.

References

External links

Domain SU: from the RIPN to the TCI

Technical provisions for interaction with the system of domains registration
{Dead link, date=June 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=no
Official TCI website
Domain name registries