(Editor’s note:  In this post, Russ Mundy, principal networking scientist at Cobham Analytic Solutions and member of the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, reflects on this week’s DNSSEC workshop at the ICANN meeting.  A longtime participant in the global effort to move DNSSEC to deployment, Mundy is among the partners in the DNSSEC Deployment Coordination Initiative.)

Wednesday at the Brussels ICANN meeting was an exciting day for folks interested in DNSSEC deployment. There had been quite a build up for the DNSSEC Workshop including remarks by ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, in his opening speech for the Brussels meeting.

There were over thirty presenters and panelists from around the globe that contributed their experiences, issues and ideas related to deployment of DNSSEC. A panel format was used to lead both in-room and remote discussions. The panels included Registry and Registrar issues, ISP and Resolver issues, Tools for DNSSEC, presentations of activities from around the region (even a few t-shirts handed out) as well as presentations on signing of the root zone. As noted in other blog entries, there were a number of DNSSEC announcements made at and around the workshop that further added to the enthusiasm and excitement.

This workshop had another milestone in that eight organizations agreed to sponsor lunch for workshop participants. So, the workshop participants received a sizable dose of DNSSEC and a free lunch.

I’m not sure who started the phrase “This is the end of the beginning for DNSSEC” but I heard it from a number of people. Almost as if to drive the point home to this humble DNSSEC enthusiast, I found that the Internet service provider for the hotel where I stayed for the meeting manipulated DNS such that I was not able to use DNSSEC at all
from my hotel room. These are, indeed, exciting times for DNSSEC deployment but there are still many things that need to be done by many people and organizations to make DNSSEC ubiquitous – but it sure is nice to have reached the “end of the beginning.”