In October 2008 ICANN appointed Westlake Consulting Limited as the consultants for the independent review of the RSSAC, the DNS Root Server Advisory Committee.The role of the Committee is to advise the Board about the operation of the root name servers of the domain name system. The RSSAC considers and provides advice on the operational requirements of root name servers, including host hardware capacities, operating systems and name server software versions, network connectivity and physical environment. The RSSAC also examines and advises on the security aspects of the root name server system, as well as reviews the number, location, and distribution of root name servers considering the total system performance, robustness, and reliability. Westlake Consulting just released their draft Final Report for public presentation and discussion at the Mexico City meeting.
The Independent Report [PDF, 350K] is published in English; its Executive Summary is available in English [PDF, 58K], and its translation in the 5 further UN languages will follow shortly.
Source: ICANN Announcement -- Reprinted with permission -- February 24, 2009