[ICANN]<http://www.icann.org/> News Alert https://www.icann.org/resources/press-material/release-2014-12-22-en ________________________________ A New L-Root Instance Established with ICANN and China's ZDNS Cooperation Introduction of L-Root Instance in China Helps Mitigate Network Outages and Reduce DNS-Related Delays 22 December 2014 Beijing, China ... A new L-Root instance has been installed in China, increasing the Domain Name System's (DNS) overall fault tolerance and its resilience against certain types of cyber threats, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The launch of the L-root server node is a joint operation between ICANN and China's Internet Domain Name System Beijing Engineering Research Center (ZDNS). As the first Internet domain name system engineering research center in China that focuses on DNS operational and supporting technologies, ZDNS supplied the equipment necessary for the installation of the new L-Root node, in close collaboration with the Beijing Internet Institute. "The introduction of the L-Root mirror will significantly increase the inter-networking efficiency of Chinese Internet. The improved infrastructure not only benefits the at-large Internet users with regards to their user experiences, but also provides a firm basis to various Internet applications," said Wei Mao, Director General of ZDNS. The cooperation between the two organizations is an effort to enhance security, stability and resiliency to Chinese Internet users and reduce the response time experienced when making some DNS queries. "The stability and resiliency of the global Internet continue to be strengthened with ZDNS installation of the L-Root instances," said ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé. "We're pleased to complete this second L-Root instance installation in China this year, after a similar cooperation with 21Vianet. ICANN will continue to work with other Chinese partners to bring in more L-Root instances into the country," said Kuek Yu-Chuang, Vice President and Managing Director for ICANN Asia Pacific Hub. There are 13 "root" DNS servers, identified by alphabetic letters A through M - the "L" root server operated by ICANN being one. Computers typically communicate with each other using numeric addresses, while humans find it easier to use and remember names (for instance, users typically remember the domain name "ICANN.ORG" more easily than the Internet Protocol address, 2620:0:2d0:200::7). The DNS translates names into addresses and the root servers provide the pointers to the servers for top-level domains (the last part of domain names, for example, "ORG" in "ICANN.ORG"). Spreading this root information out geographically by duplicating the root servers leads to a resilient, dispersed system that reduces the risk of being taken offline by a problem or attack and reduces the time it takes to look up names on the Internet. For more information about L-root, please visit www.dns.icann.org/<http://www.dns.icann.org/>. # # # Media Contacts ICANN Liana Teo Head of Communications, Asia Pacific Singapore Tel: +65 6808 6669 Email: liana.teo@icann.org<mailto:liana.teo@icann.org> ZDNS Xueqi Zhang Head of Communications Beijing, China Tel: +86 10 6250 6578 Email: zhangxueqi@zdns.cn<mailto:zhangxueqi@zdns.cn> About ICANN ICANN's mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers. ICANN doesn't control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org<https://www.icann.org/>. About ZDNS As a leading integrated domain name service provider in China, ZDNS is dedicated to providing clients one-stop domain name solutions, such as new gTLD application and back-end service, domain name cloud service, R&D on DNS-related technologies, and DNS appliances. ZDNS has become the largest new gTLD back-end provider in Asia, hosting 23 new gTLDs. For more information please visit: http://www.zdns.cn/en/<http://www.zdns.cn/en/>