The first instance of L-Root has been installed in Pakistan, we have checked. As per information we have received, Pakistan’s first L-Root server node was jointly launched by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Nayatel (Pvt) Ltd, Pakistan’s first Fiber to The Home Service provider.
Nayatel supplied the equipment necessary for the installation of the L-Root node, along with Data Center hosting and Internet transit.
For those who don’t know, there are 13 “root,” or fully authoritative, DNS servers, identified by alphabetic letters A through M — the “L” root being one.
ISPs tend to replicate these root servers or create logical root services at local level to speed up the DNS lookup process for the native users. Nayatel’s L-Root server is one such instance that will contribute towards the stability and improved response times for the rapidly growing Internet community of Pakistan.
So with a L-Root server at Nayatel premises, internet users in Pakistan when requiring for a L-Root DNS lookup will be served at local level, instead of getting severed from a foreign location.
This cooperation between both organizations is an effort to provide security, stability and resilience to Pakistan’s Internet users and reduce the response time they experience when making Domain Name System (DNS) queries.
“Nayatel, with its commitment towards highest standard of service quality and positive contribution towards society, has partnered with ICANN and has offered its Data Center, Internet Transit, and Server Hardware to host the first L-Root DNS server instance in Pakistan. This DNS Root server, being a critical part of the Internet infrastructure will contribute towards the stability and better speed for the growing Internet community of Pakistan.” said Wahaj-us-Siraj, CEO Nayatel (Pvt) Ltd.
Computers locate one another on a network by using numeric addresses, while humans find it easier to use and remember names (for instance, users typically remember the domain name “www.abc.com” more easily than the Internet Protocol address, 203.82.48.5). DNS servers are a critical part of the Internet infrastructure because they are the first step in translating (resolving) human readable host names into IP addresses that are used in internet communication.
The Domain Name System (DNS) matches domain names with numeric addresses, in much the same way a phone book matches names to phone numbers.
Spreading root information out geographically by duplicating the root servers leads to a resilient, dispersed system that cannot be taken offline by a problem at any single instance of a given DNS root server.
