Google has open sourced Nomulus, a registry platform that powers its top-level domains (TLDs). The cloud-based model has been used by the search giant since 2011.
Originally projected to support the path-breaking announcement by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in June 2011, Google’s Nomulus allows users to manage many TLDs in a single shared instance. It braces the entire range of TLD functionality designed by ICANN and helps in developing an internet infrastructure.
“Nomulus can manage any number of TLDs in a single shared instance and supports the full range of TLD functionality required by ICANN, including the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), WHOIS, reporting, and trademark protection,” Google’s Ben Mcllwain wrote in a blog post.
Google Registry, which serves webmasters a domain registry platform, uses Nomulus to operate TLDs like .google, .how and .soy. Further, the project gives an authoritative source to domains and enables tracking of domain name ownership as well as handling registrations.
The code of Nomulus is available in Java and released under the Apache 2.0 license. Also, it uses Google App Engine to run domain registry service and is powered by Google Cloud Datastore.
A step to promote Google Cloud Platform
Although Google is showcasing Nomulus as an open source offering, it requires Google Cloud Platform. This shows an invisible step for Google to promote its cloud platform and demonstrate its key features.
“We hope that by providing access to our implementation of core registry functions and up-and-coming services like Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), we can demonstrate advanced features of Google Cloud Platform,” mentioned Mcllwain.
In addition to encouraging Google Cloud Platform adoption, Nomulus would bring open standards in the domain name industry for registry operators. Donuts, which owns nearly 200 TLDs, is already named to be one of the contributors to the opened source code.
All in all, Google’s attempt with Nomulus is apparently to make things difficult for Amazon Web Services that presently existed as the closest competitor against Google Cloud. Domain registry is one of the areas where Amazon is yet to make its focus.
