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Archive of "General" Category
DNSSEC – An Overview for Resellers
DNSSEC – An Overview for Resellers via HEXONET Blog
Why DNSSEC is Important to Resellers and End Users
Though technologies like the Domain Name System (DNS) are fundamental to making the Internet work, businesses using the Internet, typically don’t need to know the details of the technology to make use of it. Most resellers go on without ever giving such technologies a second thought. However, for those businesses, spending a little time trying to understand important technology shifts can result in real benefits and competitive advantage. DNSSEC (Secure DNS) is one such technology that resellers should monitor.
Without going into the technical mumbo jumbo, in a nutshell, DNSSEC is a secure version of the well established and insecure version of DNS. Cache poisoning, the unauthorized access and modification of DNS caches to intentionally spoof websites, hijack email, and even steal passwords has been a major vulnerability. DNSSEC ensures cache poisoning is prevented, that DNS data cannot be forged and that data originating from its stated source is not modified in transit.
DNSSEC is a High Value Security Feature
With the domain and hosting markets being so competitive, a new feature, especially a high value security feature like DNSSEC, can create an opportunity to gain customers. This is particularly true if one’s competitors are unable to offer the same feature. Right now, .DE, .ORG, .EU and .SE domains registered at HEXONET can be signed with the registrant’s DNSSEC validation keys. DNSSEC not only adds a technical layer of security for the domain holder, but more importantly, provides the registrant the peace of mind that their domain can’t be used for malicious purposes.
First DNSSEC Accredited European Registrar with .ORG
Robert Birkner, Chief Strategy Officer of HEXONET, “wants to congratulate the Public Interest Registry, for being the first generic Top-Level-Domain registry to fully deploy DNSSEC. We are delighted to support PIR in many of its initiatives and in particular its leadership in DNSSEC.”
“We congratulate 1API for passing the DNSSEC certification for .ORG,” says Alexa Raad, CEO of .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, “and applaud them for taking a leadership role in the European registrar community for supporting DNSSEC.”
Why Choose HEXONET’s Future-proof DNSSEC
HEXONET is one of the first registrars to fully support DNSSEC. In fact, HEXONET’s implementation of DNSSEC supports both DS based and DNSKEY based delegation to ensure seamless interoperability with a wide variety of registries for today and in the future. Technically this means, as a HEXONET reseller, we have you covered no matter how individual registries implement their DNSSEC.
“”As pioneer in DNSSEC, .SE welcomes 1API as a registrar that can offer DNSSEC to their customers.” – Danny Aerts, CEO of the SE Registry
HEXONET’s Customers Ecstatic About Acquiring Multilingual .tel Domain Names
HEXONET’s advanced pre-registration technology for new TLD releases, like Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) for the communications-focused .tel, impresses customers with it’s ease of use, performance, and success rate in acquiring domains.
Homburg, Germany – June 16, 2010 – HEXONET (www.hexonet.net) announced today that over ninety percent (90%) of pre-registered multilingual .tel domain names, placed with HEXONET, were successfully registered on behalf of its clients and resellers, when Telnic, the registry operator for the award-winning, communications-focused .tel, went live with IDN registrations on June 15th. The first .tel IDN registered was “ärzte.tel”, German for “doctors.tel”, which was registered through Germany based registrar 1API GmbH – the registrar of HEXONET GmbH. With the growing importance, popularity, and value of IDN domain names, the acquisition of such a large percentage of pre-registered .tel IDNs has HEXONET customers elated.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are registered and accessed using non-Latin characters. For Telnic, these are domain names using the following languages – Chinese, Danish, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. As the Internet continues to garner more global users, the demand of IDNs continues to grow unabated.
According to Justin Hayward, Business Development Director at Telnic, “the value of a .tel name, the Internet’s only concise and universally-accessible online calling card, is now greater and more universal with IDNs. The ability for anyone to access your online contact information in their own language is highly beneficial. We’d also like to congratulate 1API GmbH on registering the first .tel IDN.”
HEXONET’s high acquisition success for .tel IDNs is the result of countless engineering hours and years of operational optimizations. Today, HEXONET customers have access to one of the industry’s most advanced pre-registration systems anywhere. And with many more new TLD launches on the horizon, like .CO on July 20th, now is the time for individuals, businesses, and organizations to start pre-registering.
About HEXONET
Since 1999, HEXONET has been a leading developer and service provider of reseller technologies for the domain industry, including domain backordering and pre-registration. Thousands of resellers, startups and service providers from across the world trust HEXONET as their domain platform provider. And today, HEXONET manages over 700K thousands domains for its clients.HEXONET Media Relations
T: +49 6841 6984-0
F: +49 6841 6984-199
info@hexonet.nethttp://hexonet.net
HEXONET Makes Securing High-Value and Profitable .CC and .TV Domains Easy
HEXONET’s advanced backordering technology continues to rapidly expand with the addition of .CC and .TV domains, making HEXONET’s Backordering Service one of the industry’s largest – Twelve total TLDs offered and growingVancouver, Canada May 11, 2010 — HEXONET (www.hexonet.net) announced today the addition of .CC and .TV domains to its growing portfolio of backorderable TLDs (Top-Level-Domains). With over twelve TLDs to backorder from, including rare TLDs like .ASIA and now .CC and .TV, HEXONET offers one of the widest selections of TLDs for those looking to acquire high-value, profitable and soon to expire domain names.
Everyday, excellent domain names expire and become publicly available for registration, some even with existing traffic and returning visitors. Expiring domains for both .CC and .TV are highly desirable. Media and television type domains have long been sought after. And with the restrictive registration policies from the Chinese government surrounding .CN, .CC domains, used as “Chinese Company”, are growing in popularity.
According to Jens Wagner, HEXONET’s Chief Executive Officer, “right now the opportunities are tremendous for anyone wanting to obtain expiring domains, either for profit or to simply acquire a domain that one has always wanted. Up to now, the problem has been the lack of service availability for domains like .ASIA or .DE. We are changing the game by not only adding hard to implement TLDs, but by also rolling out many more hard to implement TLDs in the coming months. Stay tuned.”
Individuals, businesses, and organizations can signup for free at HEXONET and immediately start backordering .CC and .TV domains. Backordering for other domain extensions, such as .DE, .INFO, .BIZ, .ORG, .ASIA and more are also available.
About HEXONET
Since 1999, HEXONET has been a leading developer and service provider of reseller technologies for the domain industry, including domain backordering. Thousands of resellers, startups and service providers from across the world trust HEXONET as their domain platform provider. And today, HEXONET manages over 600K thousands domains for its clients.HEXONET Media Relations
T: 604-637-5788
F: 604-909-1868
info@hexonet.net
http://hexonet.net.ME – Still a Sizzling Top-Level-Domain
The Sizzle:dot .ME, the ccTLD (country code Top-Level-Domain) of Montenegro, even now, nearly two years after its release, is still as popular as ever, if not more! With the Registry’s second anniversary quickly approaching (second anniversary of “Go Live” on July 16, 2010), HEXONET is not only spotlighting the domain, but will also run a huge promotion towards their reseller channel and make obtaining a .ME even cheaper and better.
Personally I’ve always had an interest in .ME for a couple reasons:- At the very beginning of the Registry, I had the opportunity to advise and assist this TLD through the first few months of its launch in 2008
- The individuals running, maintaining and promoting .ME in Montenegro are not only great people with a true passion for this TLD, but are also people who I call friend.
- A sensational Success Story! Since July 16, 2008 (“GoLive”) dot ME has been on a tremendous journey of success. Highlights of the past couple of years:
- July 16, 2008 .ME officially launches and ushers in a new era of personalization on the web. Minimum registration period is 2 years at an average annual market retail price of 19.00 EUR per Domain/Year
- Within two (2) days, .ME has an astonishing 50,000 Domains under management with most registrants coming from the USA, UK, Germany, Canada and China respectively.
- August 5, 2008, just two weeks after launch, the registry announced that they had already surpassed 100,000 Domains under Management!
- September 2008, .ME auctioned the first set of eleven (11) premium domains during the Traffic Conference in New York, where proceeds amazingly total over 218,000 USD! – “date.me” was the highest sold .ME domain at 70,000 USD!
- Keeping the fast pace of changes going at the registry, on October 1, 2008, the Registry reduced the two (2) year minimum registration requirement to one (1) year, for the benefit for all.
- January 2009, the second .ME premium domain auction took place at the domain industry’s premier event “DomainFest Global ‘09″ – five (5) more premium .ME Domains were auctioned off successfully
- February 10, 2009, approx. 7 months after “GoLive”, dot .ME has over 200,000 Domains registered!
- April 2, 2009, Domain.ME releases another 35 premium .ME Domains for auction through SEDO
- May 18, 2009, Domain.ME announces “A Limited Time Auction of Premium Domains with NameJet™” where 15 additional premium .ME Domain names were successfully auctioned.
- May 20, 2009, less than a year after “GoLive”, .ME hits quarter of Million Domains under Management
- August 27, 2009, following up on the first highly successful auction with NameJet™, .ME announces the second premium domain auction with NameJet™.
- September 9, 2009, WordPress starts using “WP.me” as their standard URL Shortener
- January 5, 2010, FaceBook, The World’s Largest Social Network, uses .ME to provide access for its mobile users with “FB.me”
- January 26, 2010, Hollywood realizes the value of .ME domains, by branding the upcoming 3D/CGI movie from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment with the .ME domain Despicable.Me.
- Continued success after success after success has been the story of .ME. The dot ME organization has been a model Registry in the way it does press releases, attends key industry events, and most importantly, the way it stays in touch with its registrars.
- Why .ME Continues to Stay Hot! .ME is an ideal domain for the following:
- Personal use for blogs, family pictures, …etc.
- Great for call-to-action domains, such as call.me, date.me, insure.me, …etc.
- Ideal for brands to give your brand a more personal touch, basically making your brand more personal
- Some cool .ME Domains are fits.me, appo.me, despicable.me, fwd4.me, whyhire.me, … and many more.
- If you are interested in registering a .ME domain, simply go to www.hexonet.net, fill the online sign-up form, load your account and register away! Be sure to take advantage of our .ME Promo starting this April (running through to June 30th) where .ME domains will be going away for less than 5.00 EUR per Domain/Year! Get your personal domain today!
Acquiring High-Value, Soon to Expire .ASIA Domains, HEXONET’s Newest Innovation
HEXONET’s DotAsia backordering technology is one of the first, if not the first, backorderingservices for .ASIA domains – thousands of domains soon to expire on DotAsia’s anniversary.Vancouver, Canada March 3, 2010 — HEXONET (www.hexonet.net) announced today one of the domain industry’s first, if not the first, backordering services for DotAsia domain names. Utilizing HEXONET’s revolutionary domain backordering search engine and service platform, starting today, for the first time, anyone will be able to search for expiring .ASIA domains as well as backorder them even before they expire. Again, only at HEXONET, can .ASIA domain backorders be placed using this new technology.
“With DotAsia’s Landrush anniversary fast approaching, HEXONET was determined to launch the DotAsia backordering service as quickly as possible,” said Robert Birkner, Chief Strategy Officer of HEXONET. Birkner also went on to say, “On February 20th, thousands of domains, if not tens of thousands, first went into redemption (expiration) resulting from DotAsia’s massive launch two years ago. Many fantastic domains are going to be up for grabs towards the end of March and only HEXONET customers will have the newest technology to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Edmon Chung, Chief Executive Officer of the DotAsia registry, has been quoted as saying, “We are excited to see technological innovations built around DotAsia domains. With the implementation of the Asian Free Trade Area between China and 10 South East Asian nations earlier this year, the usage and demand of DotAsia domains will continue to grow, not only for new domains, but also for domains that have been previously registered as businesses expand to the regional Asian marketplace.”
Individuals, businesses, and organizations can sign up for free at HEXONET and immediately start backordering .ASIA domains. Backordering for other domain extensions–such as .DE, .INFO, .BIZ, .ORG, and more–is also available.
About HEXONET
Since 1999, HEXONET has been a leading developer and service provider of reseller technologies for the domain industry. Thousands of resellers, startups and service providers from across the world trust HEXONET as their domain platform provider. And today, HEXONET manages over six hundred thousand domains for its clients.2009 in Review
2009 is slowly coming to an end, and what a year this was. Looking back, here are some of my personal highlights.
January 2009 – Completion of Consulting
I completed my consulting assignment for dot ME, which was a fantastic experience. Seeing a TLD with so much creativity grow was amazing. It was also beneficial to actually have had the opportunity to see the views of a registry and not just a registrar.
February 2009 – Founding of HEXONET Services Inc.
HEXONET Services Inc. was formed and officially inaugurated in February. I am now back on track of what I always wanted to do. I have a great partner on board here in North America, and I have someone in Germany whom I trust and with whom I have worked together with before very successfully – Jens Wagner. In addition to this, I’m extremely happy to be once again working with Dennis, Chris and Sven in Germany with whom I’ve also worked very successfully with at Key-Systems, and have come to respect. It is amazing how things sometimes turn out.March 2009
HEXONET Services Inc. launched product offerings for North and South America in joint collaboration with our colleagues in Germany and we have started to sign up customers on our new control panel.
April 2009 – Pre-wedding Reception in China
Leona and I had our pre-wedding Chinese reception in China with my parents and Leona’s family. It was a wonderful and moving experience. This was my parents’ first trip to China, they had a great time touring in Beijing, Shanghai, then finally in Guangzhou, for the reception.
May 2009 – Nesting
Enough with moving from country to country, it was time to settle down. With help from friends, Leona and I moved into our new house and spent the next two months spending money and more money on furniture and accessories. The terrace is looking good, I got my BBQ on one side and patio furniture on the other, add couple Coronas, a dash of sun – voila, life is great!
June 2009 – New Office
HEXONET Services Inc. moved office – Hello White-Rock! A huge and exciting step for HEXONET Canada.
July 2009 – Wedding
My brother and his family came to visit for 2 weeks prior to the wedding. All of a sudden Leona and I had a full house and had to get used to 2 kids. Having a brand new house with two kids can be very tiring. Nonetheless, you get used to them so quickly and once they left Leona and I started to miss the two terribly. July was just a very busy but happy month. We had to take care of family and ensure that they enjoyed Vancouver. Both Leona and I were so thankful to having our parents come over, my brother and sister with family as well as family and relatives from Leona. And just like that, July 16, 2009 was upon us and what a day this was. Truly a day to remember, with perfect weather for our wedding at the Brockhouse. Shortly after the wedding it was already time to say farewell to friends and family as they traveled back home.
October & November 2009
These two months were spent traveling the world again. Thankfully Leona and I work in the same industry which allowed us to sometimes travel together. October was spent entirely in Germany visiting clients and potential clients, as well as spending time at HEXONET HeadQuarters. Towards the end of October we left for Seoul to attend the next ICANN Meeting. From there we went on to HongKong to attend a fantastic event hosted by .ASIA. It was good to be back in HongKong, the city held many memories for both Leona and I. Later in the month of November we were then off to Hawaii to attend a different fantastic industry event. Luckily for us, we were able to spend a few additional days on Maui and just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed life with a good book and even better cocktails.
That basically concludes a very exciting and significant 2009. I am happily married, have a wonderful wife, have a roof over my head, am working once again with people I trust and HEXONET is doing great and definitely heading in the right direction.
I am now already looking forward to 2010 and what this coming year has in store for me.
I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. In the event that you are traveling over Christmas, remain calm and travel safe! See you in the New Year.
Being Better than the Lowest Price
A colleague and a close friend of mine Tony Kim – CMO at HEXONET just wrote a very interesting blogpost that holds so true.
Check it out under BLOG.HEXONET.NET.
Enjoy!
Why choose HEXONET?
Why Choose HEXONET Over Your Competitors? What Makes HEXONET Different?
With every phone call, meeting, or industry gathering, seemingly we at HEXONET always get asked the same questions – Why HEXONET? What makes HEXONET different from your competitors? Why should I want to partner with HEXONET? The answer is clear, HEXONET has the right people, the proven expertise, and best technology.The Team @ HEXONET
At HEXONET, our team is immeasurably greater than the sum of our individual parts. This can only happen when a team has a common vision and the passion to pursue it. HEXONET’s employees strive everyday to empower resellers through world-class engineering and innovation, whether that’s going above and beyond to answer a support call or simply investing countless of hours testing to ensure our latest builds are rock solid. This is who we are and how we work everyday.Our passion is fueled by the commendations from our customers. Emails, phone calls, and meetings where our customers not only give us praise, but also give us positive criticism provide guidance as to what we can do better and how we can innovate even more. At HEXONET we welcome our clients and partners to share in our philosophy and work with us towards making things better. This is how we grow.
And above all things, our team holds true to doing business the old fashion way – that promises are kept and our word is our honor. At HEXONET, we would rather close our doors than lose the trust of our clients and partners.
Expertise of the Team @ HEXONET
There are HEXONET competitors who are way better at marketing than us, no doubt. Also, there are some of competitors who also have top notch engineering like us. And there are some who have been in business longer than us. So how are we different? At HEXONET we believe we have the right balance of skill and experience, that when combined properly, is vastly more superior than any one skill our competitors possess.HEXONET’s foundation is world-class engineering, which is lead by some of the industry’s foremost technical talent. Though technology serves as the foundation for the company, it is our business leaders who make what we do special. Worldwide, there are only a handful of individuals who have both the high-level strategic acumen and the practical and practiced exposure in our industry to actually make things work correctly.
Altogether, HEXONET has more than thirty (30) years of experience in the domain and hosting industry, as executives, programmers and operational managers. We know the top-down strategy and most importantly the bottom-up mechanics for success.
The Technology – HEXONET eats, drinks and breathes Technology!
HEXONET technology is a reflection of a single philosophy heralded by its founder and CEO, Jens Wagner – automation is the key to success, and making automation faster and more stable only brings success that much sooner. So how does HEXONET technology bring success faster to our customers?The foundation of HEXONET technology is an ultra-fast, highly reliable, and scalable domain registration system that provides anyone who uses it the widest selection of domains from a single source (see the list). Simply connect with the platform once and everything else is entirely automated. Even if technology changes, new registries arise, old registries die, or new regulations becomes mandatory, HEXONET does all the hard work of automation for our customers!
Add to this amazing platform an abundance of ways to connect, whether it be via API, web control panel, EPP 1.0, or our newest way, Registrar Operations Center (RegistrarOC), moving from a decision to registering the first domain with us can literally be minutes.
Whether preparing for the impeding new gTLDs or looking for ways to save money without sacrificing performance, HEXONET technology even makes the decision to try totally risk-free. Risk-free because anyone can start off as a reseller (no signup fees or commitments) and seamlessly switch to their own accreditation utilizing RegistrarOC when the volume makes sense. In fact, switching requires no engineering, no effort to migrate domains onto one’s accreditation (fully automated and free of charge), and once done, saves customers even more money since afterward, domain registration and management only costs a small administrative fee per domain.
Talk with us, work with us, and see how our technology is easier to use, more reliable, and more cost effective!
dot ASIA – What’s Next?
The continent of Asia and the nation of China in particular has been an area of high interest for me this past decade. Asia and specifically China is obviously a massive opportunity and clearly the domain market of the future. Though many impediments and hurdles exist to entering the Asian market, those with the right timing and execution of entry are poised to win big. I myself have almost taken the plunge several times, especially right after the hugely successful launch of .CN.
Given all this potential, .ASIA, operated by dotASIA Organisation in Hong Kong, is uniquely positioned to be a very important TLD for the region. How important, I didn’t realize until I had the opportunity to meet with dotASIA representatives and fellow registrars at their annual .ASIA Retreat in Hong Kong. Over the two day period, I was impressed by some of their creative marketing campaigns, which were done in partnership with some of Asia’s celebrities, as well as, how wide and deep many of Asia’s ccTLD registries support .ASIA.
Though .ASIA has gotten off to a slower start than expected, around 250,000 domains under management in two years, I am confident the Registry will increasingly expand its influence and popularity in Asia and outside of Asia. The fact that .ASIA has the support of so many ccTLD registries in the region almost certainly assures their longevity. Additionally, given the information I received at the retreat, some of which I will share in this post, the future success of .ASIA is looking bright.
Community:
dotASIA has as their mandate to invest heavily into community projects, as well as, provide monies for Internet expansion and awareness in Asia. These efforts are slowing starting to pay off. Couple this awareness with the growing Internet user base and the formula for success becomes clear.
Internet User Base:
Three of the top five countries worldwide are in Asia, according to Internet World Stats as of March 31, 2009. Furthermore, Asia as a region has the largest Internet user base in the world.
Internet Users By Country: 1. China – 298,000,000 Users
2. United States – 227,200,000 Users
3. Japan – 94,000,000 Users
4. India – 81,000,000 Users
5. Brazil – 67,500,000 Users
Asian Bloggers: According to the ADMA market Yearbook for 2009, the growth and popularity of blogging in Asia is in overdrive. Even in comparison to the US the numbers are amazing.
Just looking at the “Average Monthly Unique Visitors”, Asia is approx. 44% larger than the US.
Unique .ASIA Websites:
1.) www.KeepClicking.asia 
2. www.Listenup.asia 
3. www.apea.asia 
I expect to see much success for .ASIA in the coming years, especially given the demographics of their target audience, their partnership with ccTLD registries, and their bold marketing philosophy.
“To .BE or not to .BE” – ccTLD of Belgium
It has been a while since I last posted something on ccTLDs. I decided this time to write about .BE, the official ccTLD of Belgium, operated by DNS.BE.
Brief History of .BE:
- The first .BE Domain was registered in 1989
- Until 1994, only 129 names had been registered
- In February of 1999, the non-profit association, DNS Belgium was formed (articles of association) to assume operational responsibility for the .BE registry. The actual transfer took place on January 1, 2000
- Initially registering a .BE domain was extremely restrictive, only organizations could register .BE domains and the name had to correspond to a company name, trademark or well known brand.
- In June 2000, the board of .BE decided to open up the registry to anyone worldwide, which officially took place Dec. 11, 2000.
- The effect of opening up the registry produced tremendous results. Prior to the liberalization, DNS.BE managed only 40,000 domains. After only 3 weeks of opening up, registrations jumped to 89,718, more than double, and by the end of March the registry was managing nearly 125,000 domains.
- On July 1, 2001, the registry dramatically reduced the price for registrars (Agents) down to 10.00 EUR per domain from 25.00 EUR. A year later the price was brought down further to 6.00 EUR per domain.
- On October 15, 2001, DNS.BE permitted transfers, thus allowing .BE domains to be traded freely.
- Today, DNS.BE manages nearly 1 Mill. domains (947,070 Domains – reported as of Sept. 20, 2009)
Though the chart above gives the indication that the registry has reached maturity, the ups and downs are likely attributable to various promotions. Some such promotions lowered the price a lot increasing the registration numbers, but my suspicion is that in the end, this just lead to poor renewal rates; thus, the fluctuating registrations.
If I recall correctly from one of numerous .BE Registrar Meetings I have attended in the past, then companies dominate the registrant user base for .BE mainly due to past registry policy. Over 80% of all registrations are from businesses and only 20% are from individuals. It would be extremely interesting to see the results of a whois-scan to see the latest makeup of organizations vs. individuals.
Registration Rules and Facts:
- .BE Domains can be registered for 1 Year
- Registration System is real-time
- Min./Max. Characters: 3 and 63
- Numbers (digits) are permitted
- Hyphens (“-”) are permitted, however not at the beginning or directly in front of the TLD
Trade Feature of .BE:
Unlike gTLDs, .BE Domains require a special command be sent to the registry for change of ownership, called a TRADE. A TRADE is like a classic domain transfer – registrar however remains the same – , meaning upon successfully processing of a TRADE, the registrant information is changed and the registration period starts from new. The registry charges an annual fee for this feature and registrars naturally bill for this on their end. This same feature is also used within dot EU, which is basically a mirror of the DNS.BE System. This “TRADE” feature is unique to .BE and .EU. I am sure many registrars worldwide would prefer to see .BE and .EU get rid of this feature and give the registrars more control over their customers.
HEXONET offers .BE Domains at very affordable prices. In the event you are interested in registering large volumes of .BE Domains, please reach out to the Sales Department at HEXONET at sales@hexonet.net for negotiated pricing.
Source: http://www.dns.be
