ICANN's Root Server System Advisory Committee has recently defined two standards, including RSSAC 002 , designed to obtain a baseline of the metrics for the Root Zone, specifically so that root operators can detect and mitigate any abnormalities in the performance of the DNS Root Server System as it continues to grow and develop. The initial parameters are meant to measure "latency in publishing available data, size of the root zone, number of queries, response type and size distribution, number of sources seen." While monitoring different metrics may be more valuable in the future, OARC sees the inherent value in mirroring the data output by participating root operators, and archiving it for use by our members, researchers, and other interested parties.

As part of its core mission of the collection and hosting of DNS key operational data, OARC has undertaken to act as a long-term repository for this data. Commencing January 2015 we are now gathering data from all 13 Root server instances, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L and M, with thanks to Verisign and ICANN. We actively welcome other root operators making this key data available to us, and would potentially be interested in gathering it from TLD operators too - please contact admin@dns-oarc.net if interested in contributing or the analysis of RSSAC-002 data.