EPCglobal, the industry organisation overseeing development of US standards for radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, has selected VeriSign to operate the root directory of RFID product codes.
Security software and services provider VeriSign operates the .com and .net registries for the internet, under contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The root directory for the Electronic Product Code Network will assign distinct product codes to products tagged with radio-frequency IDs based on the EPC standards. The EPC Network is offered to companies, such as manufacturers, on a subscription basis, though prices haven"t yet been disclosed.
The EPC Network would run on VeriSign"s Atlas, or Advanced Transaction Lookup and Signaling System, infrastructure, a database supporting the .net and .com registries that could look up a domain name and return an IP address in less than 10 milliseconds, said Jon Brendsel, director of EPC Network Services at VeriSign.
Atlas already handled up to 10 billion lookups a day, but had capacity of about 100 billion lookups, Brendsel said.
Such scalability was important in finding a vendor to operate the EPC Network"s root directory.
"That"s where this became an obvious fit for us," said Sue Hutchinson, product manager of EPCglobal. "Even if we start [RFID tagging] at the case and pallet level, we are looking at hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cases and pallets moving around the supply chain on a daily basis."