IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority)

is the organization under the Internet Architecture

Board (IAB) of the Internet Society that, under a
contract from the U.S. government, has overseen the
allocation of Internet Protocol addresses to Internet
service providers (ISPs). IANA also has had
responsibility for the registry for any "unique
parameters and protocol values" for Internet operation.
These include port numbers, character sets, and MIME media access types.
IANA is responsible for coordinating some of the key elements that keep the Internet running
smoothly. Whilst the Internet is renowned for being a worldwide network free from central coordination,
there is a technical need for some key parts of the Internet to be globally coordinated, and this
coordination role is undertaken by IANA.
IANAs various activities can be broadly grouped in to three categories:
Domain Names
Management of the DNS Root, the .int and .arpa domains, and an IDN practices resource.

o The DNS Root Zone

The root is the upper-most part of the DNS hierarchy, and involves delegating
administrative responsibility of top-level domains, which are the last segment of a
domain name, such as .com, .ukand .nz. Part of our tasks includes evaluating requests
to change the operators of country code domains, as well as day-to-day maintenance
of the details of the existing operators.

o .INT
The .int top-level domain, designed for the sole use of cross-national organisations,
such as treaty organisations, that do not naturally fit into a specific countrys top-
level domain. For example, who.int for the World Health Organisation.

o .ARPA
The .arpa domain is used internally by Internet protocols, such as for reverse
mapping of IP addresses, and delivery of ENUM phone number mapping. We
administer this domain in close liaison with the Internet Architecture Board, which
has policy responsibility for .arpa.

o IDN Practices Repository

To help foster the deployment of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), a
repository of IDN tables which document the permissable characters for different
languages and scripts provided for registration by different top-level domain
registries. The repository is informative, and designed for information sharing.

o Root Key Signing Key

The Root Key Signing Key provides verification of the DNSSEC-signed root zone.
 o Special Purpose Domains
A number of special domains are reserved or managed for demonstration purposes, or
for future use.

Number Resources
Co-ordination of the global pool of IP and AS numbers, primarily providing them to Regional
Internet Registries.

o Currently there are two types of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in active use: IP
version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6). IPv4 was initially deployed on 1 January
1983 and is still the most commonly used version. IPv4 addresses are 32-bit
numbers often expressed as 4 octets in dotted decimal notation (for
example, 192.0.2.53). Deployment of the IPv6 protocol began in 1999. IPv6
addresses are 128-bit numbers and are conventionally expressed using hexadecimal
strings (for example,2001:0db8:582:ae33::29).

o Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are generally assigned in a hierarchical manner.
Users are assigned IP addresses by Internet service providers (ISPs). ISPs obtain
allocations of IP addresses from a local Internet registry (LIR) or National Internet
Registry (NIR), or from their appropriate Regional Internet Registry (RIR):

Protocol Assignments
Internet protocols numbering systems are managed in conjunction with standards bodies.

The United States Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information

Administration (NTIA) remains committed to preserving a stable and secure Internet Domain Name
System (DNS). Critical to the DNS is the continued performance of the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA) functions. The IANA functions have historically included: (1) The coordination of the
assignment of technical Internet protocol parameters; (2) the administration of certain responsibilities
associated with Internet DNS root zone management; (3) the allocation of Internet numbering resources;
and (4) other services related to the management of the .ARPA and .INT top-level domains. The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) performed the IANA functions, on behalf of the
United States Government, through a contract with NTIA.

References:

https://www.ntia.doc.gov/category/iana-functions
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/IANA-Internet-Assigned-Numbers-Authority
http://www.iana.org/about
http://www.iana.org/domains
http://www.iana.org/numbers