Experiments in multi-placed root servers

[hardie@equinix.com]

Hi,
	At the DNSOPS BOF at the last IETF, there was some discussion
about how we might manage to distribute "new" root servers by making a
single root server available at multiple places in the network.  My
company is interested in doing some work along those lines, and we're
interested in soliciting the help of this group in scoping and testing
the technologies.
	Since we're pre-launch, I should explain that Equinix is in
the business of building Internet Exchanges.  It was founded by Jay
Adelson and Al Avery, who built and ran the Palo Alto Digital Internet
Exchange.  We plan to build 35 sites, 15 in North America, and 20
geographically distributed outside North America.  These are open,
carrier-neutral facilities which allow private peering and
customer-owned and operated switches as well as providing access to an
Equinix-provided switch.  We are not an ISP or in the bandwidth
business, but we will have our own AS and a corporate WAN which we can
use to synchronize delivery of services. We will also be able to
provide the single point of contact discussed at the BOF.
	Our aim would be to use a single name and a single IP,
announcing the availability of that network at every center and
delivering the traffic to the server physically located at that
center.  There are some interesting synchronization and routing
problems details, but we don't see any current gotchas.  We'd
be interested in working with the community on this, especially
to make sure that the system works in the face of real traffic.
	Comments, questions, interest in helping out?
			regards,
				Ted Hardie
				Equinix