Hi, On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 09:55:22AM +0100, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
I would support any proposal for policy change to hand out 32 bit ASNs in larger chunks going forward, like 16384 at a time or even higher numbers. It would mean less work for people maintaining programs such as "whois - client for the whois directory service" because any range would last longer. I believe 32bit-ASNs should be handed out in 3-5 year forecasted growth.
Doing small chunks just seems like needless overhead.
I'm not sure it's actually worth it - a global policy proposal is LOTS of work, and need to gain consensus in all the RIRs before it can go into effect. From the last Global Policy interactions with ARIN, most likely their lawyers will see some issue, change some wording, and break the whole thing right away - but even if they would follow common sense this time, it's still a lot of work (someone has to present to all 5 communities, lead the discussions, etc). IANA is free to chop up the ASN space in a reasonable way, so that the RIPE NCC would always receive ASN blocks from "AS3.*" (using the old asdot notation because it nicely reflects the 16+16 boundary) - and I think that RIPE DB maintenance can - and should - be automated for "oh, new chunk of ASNs" well enough so that it's not actually that much work. I still think what we have is reflecting strongly on the "conservation (and bureacratic processes!) above all else!!!" mentality IPv4 and 16bit ASNs brought upon us, but actually changing this particular aspect might not be worth the effort. That said, I won't stand in the way if someone wants to tackle this (and will be happy to help), of course. Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (89) 32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279