Egypt joins Kenya (.ke), Madagascar (.mg), Mauritius (.mu), Nigeria (.ng), Cameroon (.cm), Mozambique (.mz) , Namibia (.na), Egypt ASCII (.eg) and several other African countries in deploying the CoCCA registry system in-country. After evaluating numerous options, Egypt made the decision to base their IDN registry on the EPP software developed by CoCCA. The dotMasr project has proven to be an interesting intellectual and technical challenge for both NTRA and CoCCA developers.

Christine Arida, Director for Telecom Services and Planning at the NTRA, noted “access to CoCCA’s widely-deployed open source solution, straightforward advice, and skilled engineers made the deployment of a dotMasr registry system by our in-house engineers a considerably less daunting task than it might otherwise have been. The NTRA was able to configure CoCCA’s flexible system to meet our specific requirements, avoiding a both a lengthy development cycle and reinventing the wheel.”

CoCCA project manager Garth Miller further advised “the next release of CoCCA registry software will include the IDN tools and security enhancements developed jointly with the NTRA; it represents a significant milestone in the maturation of the CoCCA software -  the software is almost a decade old and is in use by over 30 ccTLDs. While CoCCA remains the most widely deployed TLD registry system, the dotMasr project was an opportunity for our engineers to prove that our flexible architecture and Java based open-source technology can compete head-to-head with the most expensive proprietary registry systems.”

Mr. Miller explains further, “One consideration of the joint project was to ensure that IDN and security enhancements made for dotMasr were made available to all CoCCA registry software users.  As a result, a proven IDN-capable registry is now available to ccTLD operators, even those with very limited resources. By way of example, Palestine, which has recently migrated to the CoCCA system for their ASCII TLD, also plans to utilize CoCCA for their proposed IDN ccTLD.”

CoCCA's commercial model successfully delivers economies of scale to its members.  Traditionally, “outsourcing” or “in-house development” of back-end registry services were the only two options available to TLD managers.  CoCCA's hybrid model puts TLD managers in full control and develops local capacity while giving users access to an established and proven technical platform. Providing a viable third option for countries intending to automate and deploy a standards-based TLD registry has lead to CoCCA’s sweeping success.

In order to provide the highest level of support in Africa, CoCCA has partnered with DEWCIS (the same consulting firm that assisted the Kenya NIC in CoCCA registry deployment) in a joint initiative to make CoCCA a continental standard. Adopting a common registry interface, set of technical tools, and common policies will facilitate the promotion of African ccTLDs, simplify accreditation of registrars, ease dispute resolution proceedings, and effectively address cyber-crime.

Egypt joined five other ccTLDs - Greenland, Guernsey, Jersey, Palestine and American Samoa in migrating to CoCCA in the second quarter of 2010.

CoCCA registry is the most widely deployed domain name registry system in use. The source code is open to CoCCA members and used by ccTLD operators royalty-free under a perpetual license. CoCCA is user-funded and has adopted the successful open source model of "free software" with optional commercial support.

CoCCA is a not-for-profit incorporated society with offices in New Zealand and Christmas Island (an external territory of Australia). CoCCA provides to its members a variety of technical and policy tools to efficiently manage their respective ccTLDs. Expenses related to development and maintenance of the  “core” EPP engine (registry software) is shared between CoCCA members and software users.

For Information or assistance in deploying the CoCCA software contact: