On 10 June 2007 we made a fundamental change to the way we store our data. This change was essential to allow us to move forward and develop robust online services, implement new services such as EPP and prepare for new products. This restructuring of our database systems was the largest single technical development that we have undertaken.

We spoke to Jay Daley, our Director of IT and Eleanor Bradley, our Director of Operations to find out more about this project…

Online Services is the culmination of a major project to restructure the data Nominet stores. How long did this project take to deliver?

Jay: We have been working on the data restructuring issue for a number of years. We firstly had to identify the problems with the current structure and draw up a set of proposals. We ran a consultation on these proposals so that our registrars could be aware of the implications of the changes to their own systems. The actual development time for the new system has been 18 months.

Eleanor: We wanted to offer increased services to our registrants and registrars, but in order to launch new systems the new data restructure had to be in place first. We could never just tackle one aspect of the project in isolation.

What have been the biggest challenges you have faced in implementing this huge change?

Jay: We had a number of systems that were written to provide services for registrants to meet a particular need, rather than forming part of an overall strategy for registry systems. As a result all these systems needed to be rewritten for the new data structure and to fit into the single framework of the new Online System.

Eleanor: From an Operations viewpoint, the challenge was to document every single process within our services to customers (including many that were previously a combination of manual and technical systems) and work with the developers to ensure that these would translate successfully into fully online processes.

What aspects of this project have pleased you the most?

Jay: It was great to be able to move so much data from one structure to another. I’m very pleased with the quality and usability of our online interfaces and I’ve been encouraged by the emails I’ve received from registrars congratulating us on the new system.

Eleanor: I’ve been really pleased by the way we have worked together as a company, combining the customer service aspects and technical solutions to produce a service that will really benefit our customers.

There has been some criticism since the launch from some registrars about problems they have encountered with downtime/documentation etc. What’s your response to this?

Jay: A few registrars were adversely affected but the majority of our registrars were well prepared and were able to bear with us for the few initial teething problems. We are confident that the long-term benefits will far outweigh the short-term problems that the implementation raised. We are always keen to receive feedback and will respond to and learn from any issues brought to our attention.

Eleanor: We recognise that it was a bit of a bumpy ride in the first few weeks but we hope that registrars can see that we tried to resolve issues as quickly as possible and were responsive to their feedback. We really want the system to deliver quality service to all our customers and we are very committed to achieving that.

This launch has laid the foundations for future developments. What can we expect to see in the next phase?

Jay:

• We will be moving our remaining paper-based services, such as the registrant transfer process, online.
• There will be an entirely new system to process DRS cases that will be linked into Online Services.
• Applying for a service from us will be much easier using integrated online application forms.
• Our data is now in a position to be able to add EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol), and we will be launching this in the near future.
• It will be much easier for us to make changes to our systems more quickly in future.

This entry was posted in August, 2007.
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