ICANN servers are the ‘root’ servers of the internet. ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and they are responsible for the entire Domain Name System used on the internet, and the Domain Name Servers that are used by Domain Name Resolvers to get to the sites using human language instead of IP addresses. It also enables the saving of IP addresses since on one IP you can have sub-folders that domains point to – like on shared hosting plans. The Thirteen Root Servers are the servers that store the master lists of the IPs and the name of the domain, some of the ‘servers’ are actually a cluster of a few, but they all maintain the 13 master lists on the internet. Usually requests from computers do not make it to them, rather the Domain Name Resolvers are the ones that cache the list every 24-48-72 hours – which is why it takes a domain name a while to actually propagate. ICANN is directly responsible for making sure these servers continually run. However the thirteen servers are operated by other corporations and facilities.

The 13 Root Servers are as follows

(operator:location):VeriSign:Virginia, USC-ISI: California, Cogent Communications: a distributed system, University of Maryland: Maryland, NASA: California, ISC: distributed system, United States Department of Defense NIC: Ohio, United States Army Research Lab: Maryland, Autonomica: distributed system, VeriSign: distributed system, RIPE NCC: distributed system, ICANN (The mother root): California, and finally the WIDE Project: distributed. Should there ever be a server failure of all the non distributed systems then the internet domain name registrations would slow to a crawl due to the stress – however the internet would continue to function, however should all of them be shut off all domain names as we know them would cease to exist, and ICANN would be dissolved. However, DNRs would keep the lists up for a period of time (since they all contain lists). ICANN insures that these servers stay working and online through funding and fees collected on domain names. Should ICANN fail, there are already alternate root systems that are running – however these are usually localized and run on smaller servers and are more of an experiment than an alternate option.