NeuStar, Inc. today announced that the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), a not-for-profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the .ca country code top-level domain (TLD), has chosen NeuStar’s UltraDNS Managed DNS Service to bolster the scalability and reliability of Canada’s DNS infrastructure.

Canada is one of the world’s most wired nations. With more than one million domain names under registration and a 20% annual growth rate, .ca now ranks as the 17th largest Internet domain. This ranking is even more impressive considering that .ca names can only be registered by people and businesses with a legitimate Canadian presence, while names in popular “global” domains such as .com can be registered by anyone, anywhere.

CIRA has leveraged NeuStar’s UltraDNS Managed DNS Service to expand its global network footprint in a cost- and resource-effective manner. As the number of .ca domains continues to grow, international DNS network expansion is critical in providing a reliable, high-performance TLD. Rather than expanding its existing DNS network, CIRA is utilizing the UltraDNS platform to increase on-demand capacity to handle large volumes of traffic and also to gain software code diversity within its network environment. Achieving code diversity provides enhanced security, and is becoming standard operating procedure for the TLD community.

With the UltraDNS Managed DNS Service, CIRA also will benefit from the DNS Shield(TM), a revolutionary extension of the UltraDNS infrastructure. The DNS Shield involves the deployment of authoritative DNS servers within the core networks of leading ISPs, creating a hardened and secure DNS infrastructure that provides unprecedented levels of Internet performance and advanced protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and pharming attacks. This unique solution enables secured DNS resolution for end users of partner ISPs for more than 30 TLDs, including .ca, supported on the UltraDNS platform.

“Stability and performance are essential for CIRA and for the holders of .ca domains,” said Norm Ritchie, chief information officer at CIRA. “CIRA selected NeuStar to complement our .ca DNS infrastructure because they are a recognized leader and innovator, and they have a proven track record of supporting the TLD community with robust DNS solutions.”

“We are very proud to count CIRA as a NeuStar partner,” said Rodney Joffe, senior vice president and senior technologist at NeuStar. “.ca is a critical TLD for a significant number of users, and we are pleased to provide advanced DNS services in supporting a key piece of the Internet infrastructure. We look forward to a long and productive relationship.”

More information about NeuStar’s UltraDNS suite of services is available at www.ultradns.com.