Nominum

Nominum, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Telecommunications Security Software
Founded	Redwood City, California, U.S. (1999)
Headquarters	Redwood City, California
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Gary Messiana (CEO) Sandy Wilbourn (VP Engineering)
Website	Nominum.com

Nominum is a Silicon Valley software company headquartered in Redwood City, California, United States.

Nominum focuses on DNS-based analytics, network infrastructure and network security for telecommunication service providers.

The company develops caching and authoritative DNS software designed to maintain network reliability and performance. It also develops software designed to prevent the spread of inside threats such as botnets and DNS-based amplification attacks in service provider networks. The company recently launched applications based on Subscriber Internet activity analytics. These DNS-based applications are designed to increase customer retention, engagement and monetization.

History

Nominum was founded in 1999 to develop BIND 9 and ISC DHCP3 for the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). Following its work on these projects, Nominum undertook to create the world’s first commercial-grade DNS and DHCP solutions.

Under the leadership of Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of the DNS and Ted Lemon, author of the first widely used DHCP implementation, Nominum released two products: Caching Name Server (CNS) and Dynamic Configuration Server (DCS) – the first commercial-grade DNS and DHCP products – in 2002.

During the 2000s Nominum built up a customer base for its DNS technologies with the result that today, Nominum’s DNS software powers the networks of Communication Service Providers in 40 countries, involving 30% of global web traffic and supporting over 500 million internet users worldwide.

In 2009 the company introduced a new DNS security capability that functions as a spam blacklist, providing automated, real-time checking of DNS queries against a list of known malicious sites. This was based on Nominum’s Trusted Response and Universal Enforcement (TRUE) technology, which protects broadband users and devices against a range of Internet threats and malicious content.

In 2012, Nominum worked with Microsoft to take down the botnet Nitol.

In November 2013, Nominum launched Vantio ThreatAvert, software for fixed-line and mobile networks, designed to stop the spread of threats that originate from within the network itself.

In February 2014, the company announced the launch of a suite of N2 applications for fixed-line and mobile networks. The applications N2 Care, N2 Engage and N2 Promote use DNS-based Internet activity data to enable customer care and marketing teams to send targeted communications and offers via in-browser messaging to their subscribers.

Products

Nominum products are categorized under two brands:

1. Vantio™ - DNS engines and security products – targeted to telecommunication network and security teams
2. N2 – DNS-based customer and marketing analytics applications - targeted to telecommunication marketing and customer care teams

Network Infrastructure (DNS)

• Vantio CacheServe
• Vantio AuthServe

Security

• N2 ThreatAvert
• Global Intelligence Xchange

Customer Analytics

• N2 Insight Application Suite

Marketing Analytics

• N2 Engage Application Suite
• N2 Reach Application Suite

Funding

Since its launch in 1999, Nominum has received $41M in total funding. The company’s investors include Morgenthaler Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Juniper Networks, Verisign, Globespan Global Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Presidio STX, and SVB India Capital Partners.

Partners

Nominum works with a variety of partners in the security industry, including IBM, F-Secure, Sophos, Fortinet and Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit. It also has relationships with several channel partners covering the EMEA, Latin America and Asia-Pacific markets.

Customers

Nominum’s customers include 90% of the biggest telecom & Communications Service Provider firms worldwide including Comcast, Charter Communications, Cablevision, Virgin Media, Telefónica, Swisscom, NTT, Verizon, BT, Rostelecom, the Netherlands’ KPN, Telstra and India’s Bharti Airtel. Nominum software is also used by large enterprise customers such as Walmart, eBay, Motorola Mobility and BlackBerry.

See also

• Web blocking in the United Kingdom - Technologies