Internet Organizations

Associated with the Internet are 4 key organizations. Each has its own purposes and responsibilities that combined provide administrative and management structure to this connected global network.

Internet Society (ISOC)

The Internet Society is an organization of researchers who lead the development of all things Internet-related.

This society is responsible for overseeing the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).

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Internet Architecture Board (IAB)

The Internet Architecture Board defines the rules and standards for Internet operations.

One of the rules/standards defined by the IAB is that of the use of a standard protocol for communicating between systems -- TCP/IP.

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Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)

The Internet Research Task Force is concerned with the longer-term issues related to the evolution of the Internet.

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Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

The ICANN is responsible for the distribution (allocation) of IP addresses and the management of the Domain Name System.

Those wishing to connect to the Internet -- corporations, Internet Service Providers, colleges and universities -- go through ICANN to register IP addresses as well as domain (host) names.

For example, the University of Nebraska at Omaha's IP address begins with 137.48.*.* and their primary domain (host) name is unomaha.edu. With this information, sub-units of the university, such as departments and the library, can get connected under the 137.48.*.* IP address range and the unomaha.edu domain name. Thus, the Web site of the UNO Library is library.unomaha.edu with the IP address 137.48.70.2.

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