Optimize your naming strategy with rational management of your domain name portfolio
Without the support of an expert, a company’s online presence can be a complex undertaking: the use of brand names as domain names requires familiarity with a large number of rules imposed by industry players. It’s also important to ensure data security, despite the many parties involved, and to maintain technical and administrative follow-up, which can prove difficult.
Nicolas Kapfer, IT Manager at Emma, shares his experience of migrating domain names to Gandi. He tells us how simple this operation is when accompanied by the experts at Gandi Corporate Services.
When a company grows, makes acquisitions or internationalizes its activities, its digital assets may become dispersed. Domain name portfolio management can then become complex. Different providers, many brands, multiple portfolios and numerous user accesses all contribute to cumbersome management processes, which can jeopardize the security of an entire business.
A single contact person
Emma’s IT infrastructure team wanted to simplify domain name management operations with a single point of contact. “We were looking for a service provider capable of offering a complete domain name management and support solution,” explains Nicolas Kapfer, who also mentions his need to devote his IT teams to other tasks. The choice of Gandi as our single point of contact was influenced by price, of course, but also by its ability to handle this migration from A to Z, and by its range of technical solutions such as DNS Anycast redundancy, API automation and SSO (Single Sign-On).
This migration and the support that followed were a meticulous process orchestrated by an account manager.
This process usually begins with the identification of critical domain names and those with technical particularities, to ensure a secure data transition. Next, a migration plan is drawn up, which may include an initial phase with less sensitive domains, to familiarize IT teams with the transfer procedure.
This support is crucial, and provides an estimate of the resources and time required for the project, thus ensuring complete transparency.
“One of the challenges we faced was the number of name providers we had, as well as the quantity“, recalls Nicolas Kapfer. It’s crucial for a company to anticipate these obstacles, and the use of external expertise such as that provided by Gandi Corporate Services is a way of relieving employees of a certain amount of pressure: “Some areas require upstream work as well as local presences (provided by Gandi!), and we hadn’t anticipated the coordination skills and rigor required (…) The steering and coordination for a complex migration of this type was executed very professionally by Gandi Corporate Services.“
Management of a consolidated portfolio
Once the migration is complete, it is possible to manage all domain names with a global view. “As a fast-growing global e-commerce player, one of the challenges of managing domain names is to centralize and optimize their management“, says Emma’s IT manager.
To meet these needs, Gandi Corporate Services can automate the registration of domain names in the customer’s information system (IS), using Gandi’s API.
This portfolio management can also include a defensive dimension, “This year we plan to reinforce the security aspect with more advanced detection and defense solutions for our brands and the connection of our administrators, an essential subject these days” says Nicolas Kapfer.
The experience of Nicolas Kapfer and his team shows the need to call on an external partner like Gandi Corporate Services to manage these procedures and operations, “The preparation phase is critical and easily underestimated, so it’s important to spend time upstream on the administrative side, as well as identifying and raising awareness among key players with the help of your account manager“. This point of contact with the Gandi Corporate Services team also ensures that relevant information is available at every stage. “Another fundamental point is the sharing of knowledge“, stresses Mr. Kapfer, adding “Being able to benefit from the experience and expertise of our account manager has enabled us to structure and prioritize our actions.“
