National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) operates internet exchange points, manages the .IN domain registry, and acts as the National Internet Registry (NIR) for India. It aims to promote internet usage and development in India. As registry operator, NIXI manages the .IN domain and registers internationalized domain names (IDNs) in Indian languages. As NIR, it allocates IP addresses through its Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN). NIXI faces challenges in increasing traffic at exchange points and the number of affiliates under IRINN. It has a vision of making India a hub for internet exchange in Asia and enabling multilingual internet access through domains in all Indian languages by 2015.

1. National Internet Exchange of India
(NIXI): Activities and Achievements
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2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Internet Exchange Operations
• .IN Registry Operations
• National Internet Registry Operations
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3. NIXI

It is a not for profit Organization under section 25 of the
Companies Act 1956 .

It was registered on 19th June, 2003, with joint efforts by DeitY
(Department of Electronics & Information Technology,
Government of India) , ISPAI (Internet Service Providers
Association of India) and academia.

NIXI is the neutral Internet Exchange in the country.
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4. Objectives

To Promote Internet.

To set up, when needed, in select location(s)/parts/regions of
India Internet Exchanges/Peering Points.

Set up Internet domain name operations and related activities.

To act as the National Internet Registry (NIR) for India .

To act as Registry for any IDN ccTLD (Internationalized Domain
Names country code Top Level Domain) in official languages of
the country.

To act as Registry for any gTLD (generic Top Level Domain)
which it may choose to apply to ICANN.
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9. Challenges and Opportunities of IX
 Presently only ISPs having ISP license from DOT are allowed to connect to the
NIXI exchange points
 Following should be allowed to connect at NIXI directly to increase the traffic
exchanged at NIXI for leading to improved quality of Internet services
experienced by users:
- Domestic companies, government, the educational sector, the banking
sector, international content provides , Content Data Networks (CDN).
- The way forward is to allow any registered legal entity (a company) with an
Autonomous System Number (ASN) to interconnect at NIXI and working as
a Regional Exchange Point in Asia.

10. Challenges and Opportunities of IX
 Local hosting of content .
 Website and software development .
 To increase the quantum of traffic exchange from 25 Gbps
to 100 Gbps by 2016.

11. .IN Registry Operation
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12. What is Registry
• A database of all domain names registered in a top-level
domain.
• A registry operator, is the part of the Domain Name System
(DNS) of the Internet that keeps the database of domain names,
and generates the zone files which convert domain names to IP
addresses.
• Domain names are managed under a hierarchy headed by the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) under ICANN.
• Country code top-level domains (ccTLD) are delegated by IANA
to national registries such as NIXI in India for .IN Registry.
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13. Domain Name System
 Translate host names to IP addresses
• E.g., www.google.com  74.125.91.103
• Hostnames are human-friendly
• IP addresses keep changing
 And back
• From IP addresses to DNS name
 Analogy: Phone book for the Internet
• Where they differ?
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14. Global Internet Governance Structures
• ICANN
• IANA
• IETF
• ASO
• gNSO
• ccTLDs/ccNSO
• IAB
• RIRs
• gTLD
Registries
• GAC
• ISOC
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15. ICANN
 The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-
profit private body organized under the California Nonprofit Public Benefit
Corporation Law in September, 1998 as the United States sought to transfer
vital Internet-related governance functions from Government control to
private hands.
 Among other functions, ICANN under the ‘Affirmation of Commitments’
signed between ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce on
September 30, 2009 is responsible for the functioning of the Domain Name
System (DNS). It’s role is coordination of the “global internet's systems of
unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation
of the internet's unique identifier systems.”
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16. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a
department of ICANN which oversees global IP address
allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone
management in the DNS, media types, and other Internet
Protocol-related symbols and numbers.
 ICANN performs the IANA function under a specific IANA
functions contract with the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration (NTIA), which is an agency of
the United States Department of Commerce.
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17. 17

18. What is root server
The DNS root servers are thirteen DNS server clusters which are responsible for delegating
DNS requests to the top level domain (TLD) name servers.
Root Server Name Operator IP Address
A.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
VeriSign Naming and Directory Services 198.41.0.4
B.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
Information Sciences Institute 192.228.79.201
C.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
Cogent Communications 192.33.4.12
D.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
University of Maryland 128.8.10.90
E.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
NASA Ames Research Center 192.203.230.10
F.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. 192.5.5.241
G.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
U.S. DOD Network Information Center 192.112.36.4
H.ROOT-
SERVERS.NET.
Autonomica / NORDUnet 128.63.2.53
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. Autonomica/NORDUnet 192.36.148.17 18

19. Mirror Root Servers
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20. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are domain names represented
in local language characters. Such domain names could contain letters
or characters from non-ASCII scripts. In India , the IN Registry is also
responsible for registering IDN in Indian Languages.
Why IDN?
• A very small proportion of the Indian population is English literate.
• IDN will be an enabler to increase the penetration of the Internet
through the use of local languages and help penetrate local content.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
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21. IDN in 7 Languages approved in Feb, 2011 by ICANN
Products to be made available in IDN
Unlimited registrations available for allUnlimited registrations available for all
IDN ZonesIDN Zones
S.No IDN Language
1 .भारत .Bharat in Devanagari
2 .ভারত .Bharat in Bengala
3 .భారత్ .Bharat in Telgu
4 .ભારત .Bharat in Gujarati
5 . ‫ارت‬ ‫ب‬‫ھ‬ .Bharat in Urdu
6 .இநதியா .Indiya in Tamil
7 . ਭਾਰਤ .Bharat in Gurumukhi (Punjabi)
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22. Where are we today?
 More than 1.6 million domain names registered
 More than 104 Registrars appointed across the world.
 Qualified Arbitrators appointed for dispute/conflict
management of domains, with a vibrant Dispute Resolution
Policy (No. of arbitrators is 27 and No. of Disputes 624)
 Proactively taking steps to reduce abuse of domain names.
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23. Challenges and Opportunities of
.IN
 Greater potential in the growth of .IN domain registrations with the India’s
increasing Internet base and growing eco-system.
 A massive media campaign to reach out to various sectors of economy is
required which will help to boost the .IN domain growth.
 Launching of .Bharat IDN in 6 Indian languages viz Gujarati, Bangla,
Punjabi, Urdu, Telugu and Tamil by November-December,2014.
 Reaching 5 millions .IN domain registrations by December,2016.

25. Indian Registry for Internet Names and
Numbers (IRINN)
• Govt. of India, Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY) endorsed the
operations of National Internet Registry (NIR) to NIXI.
• NIR software developed locally by NIXI and evaluated by APNIC.
• APNIC accorded recognition to NIXI on 3rd March, 2012 after
evaluation of it’s s/w to become the NIR for India.
• Collective efforts of NIXI and Internet Service Provider Association of India.
• NIR in India has been named as Indian Registry for Internet Names and
Numbers (IRINN)
• IRINN is operational from December, 2012. Till the date we have more
than 700 IRINN affiliate both transfer and new one’s.
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26. 218 affiliates have
taken IPv4 as well as
IPv6
506 affiliates
have taken IPv4
only
4 affiliates
have taken
IPv6 only
Most of the Banks and Universities are approaching IRINN seeking to
become affiliate & with request for IPv6 .
IRINN IP Allocation Status
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27. Challenges and Opportunities of
NIR
 To increase the no. of affiliates joining IRINN from 700 to 1000
 Helping SME to grow more by delegating their own IP block ,so that they
can setup their ISP independent network .
 To setup IPv6 based demo application in health and building sector.
 To setup Internet of things demo setup.
 Need a greater participation from India in Asia and global forums like Asia
pacific Network Information centre (APNIC) conferences, SANOG.

28. Restructuring NIXI
 .IN and NIR activities are sovereign functions being performed by NIXI on
behalf of the Govt of India
 Stakeholders in respect of these functions are at present not represented in
the management structure of NIXI
 Need to give adequate representation to the stakeholders from these
sovereign functions in NIXI Board.
 “Thus there is a strong case to increase the representation from .IN Registry
and IRINN operations to make the NIXI Board truly multistakeholder in
nature.”

29. Vision for NIXI
 To make it Asian hub of the Internet Exchange.
 Multilingualization of Internet by local language domain name in all
the Indian Languages (by December, 2015).
 Domain registration to reach 10 million by 2020.

30. Thank You
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