- lir-wg - mailman.ripe.net

RE: Recent Mails to the list
by Stefan.Gasteiger＠Gendorf.de 26 Apr '00

26 Apr '00

> -----Original Message----- > From: James Boyce [mailto:james@getreal.co.uk] > Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 5:19 PM > To: Nigel Titley; Rami Al-Lolah > Cc: local-ir(a)ripe.net; lir-wg(a)ripe.net > Subject: Re: Recent Mails to the list > > > I have to agree with that this is hardly the place for these > discussions - > can those that wish to continue debating this subject, which I strongly disagree. This is a topic concerning all RIPE members. I would like to see this discussed in an OPEN way public to all RIPE community. > has no interest > to our business whatsoever What's your business then? My business is to satisfy customer's needs by offering address and name services (RIPE?) services. I also don't agree with the argument, that "only the service offered by RIPE NCC counts". I'm also interested in the way the service is generated. (For example: I don't buy carpets made by children) Regards, Stefan Gasteiger SG5599-RIPE I+K Betrieb (zertifiziert nach DIN EN ISO 9001) InfraServ Gendorf Tel.: +49 8679 7 5599 Fax: +49 8679 7 39 5599 Mobiltel.: +49 172 8649205 E-Mail: Stefan.Gasteiger(a)gendorf.de

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Recent Mails to the list
by Axel Pawlik 26 Apr '00

26 Apr '00

Dear mailing list members, As you may be aware, we have a longstanding policy of not discussing internal matters of the RIPE NCC in public. In this spirit I shall not expand on the content of recent mails addressed to this list concerning the RIPE NCC staffing issues. Equally, this does not imply any statement about their truthfulness. I do, however, encourage discussion of the services we provide to our members at any time. All of our staff, including myself, are open and willing to discuss any issues relating to the RIPE NCC services. The Executive Board of the RIPE NCC Association, as the ultimate members' representation, will be happy to discuss any issue you feel you cannot bring up with the Managing Director. Sincerely, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC

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AW: Recent Mails to the list
by Sylvia Linden 25 Apr '00

25 Apr '00

! > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Rami Al-Lolah [SMTP:RamiLolah@nesma.net.sa] > Gesendet am: Dienstag, 25. April 2000 14:53 > An: Hans Petter Holen; John Charles Broomfield; Axel Pawlik > Cc: lir-wg(a)ripe.net; local-ir(a)ripe.net > Betreff: Re: Recent Mails to the list > > What the FUCK is going ON here !!!!!!!!!!!!1 > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Hans Petter Holen <hph(a)infostream.no> > To: John Charles Broomfield <jbroom(a)manta.outremer.com>; Axel Pawlik > <axel.pawlik(a)ripe.net> > Cc: <lir-wg(a)ripe.net>; <local-ir(a)ripe.net> > Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 2:04 PM > Subject: Re: Recent Mails to the list > > > > > If we accept that RIPE has a duty to its members and is under the > > obligation > > > to serve them, and as such that this mailing list is for its members, > then > > > messages to local-ir/lir-wg shouldn't really be considered as public, > but > > as > > > informational for the members of RIPE. In other words, INTERNAL. Or > are > > > non lir individuals allowed on these lists? > > > > local-ir is restricted to members of the RIPE NCC Association > > lir-wg is an open list to all interested in policy matters, see > > http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/lir/index.html for its charter and other > > info related to this workinggroup. > > > > For a period of time almost all discussions has taken place in > > the open forum (lir-wg). > > > > There is however a very low overlap between local-ir and lir-wg so I for > one > > have started sending anouncements to multiple lists. > > > > Btw, the "which lists is for what" has been on the slides for the > > last couple of LIR meetings. > > > > Sincerely, > > Hans Petter Holen > > LIR-WG chair > > > > >

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Registration Services discussion
by Axel Pawlik 20 Apr '00

20 Apr '00

Dear All, having noticed that there is no NCC response to the current training discussion on the list, let me assure you that indeed we are aware of the deficiencies in Registration Services. We have been discussing this between us for quite some time, and weighing possible angles of attack. Joao's mails reflect some of that thinking. Registration Services indeed are the core of the NCC, and we must keep up with the demands of growth. It is far up on my priority list. Your contributions are highly welcome in this context, and I am confident that together with our hostmaster collegues we will be able to come up with a road map to more efficient and speedier services. I believe that the NCC hostmasters are doing a great job; both the newcomers in learning the job's ends as quickly as possible, and the old hands in handing on their wealth of knowledge to help that process. regards, Axel Pawlik

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Re: Recent Mails to the list
by Costantino Imbrauglio 19 Apr '00

19 Apr '00

Dear Sirs, it seems that RIPE NCC has adopted a spamming policy....... Could you (all of you) please stop filling our mailboxes with such crap? Do I really need to remember you the meaning of words like "respect", "customers", "service fee", etc. Stop it and stop it IMMEDIATELY! Thank you very much in advance. Best regards, Costantino Imbrauglio cimbrauglio(a)bancaimi.it Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > In message <4.2.0.58.20000419140140.00c56100@localhost>, Axel Pawlik > writes: > > >As you may be aware, we have a longstanding policy > >of not discussing internal matters of the RIPE NCC > >in public. > > Well, In general one doesn't want to wash the laundry in public, > but in case something is truly rotten, one may have to. > > I'm not passing judgment on the various allegations here, but simply > the fact that it has gotten to this point indicates that something > smells fishy. > > We may have two hostmasters who were fired for total incompetence > or we may have two whistleblowers sacked to keep them quiet, there > is no way we can tell - yet. > > >The Executive Board of the RIPE NCC Association, as > >the ultimate members' representation, will be happy > >to discuss any issue you feel you cannot bring up > >with the Managing Director. > > (Well, obviously people have no problems with bringing things up > with you, it seems that the issue is the other way around...) > > I think we need to get a message from the exec board stating that > they will look into these matters ASAP. > > This is fairly and squarely what the exec board is responsible for. > > I think both the overall issue of hostmaster training, the rapid > turnover of hostmasters (if this is indeed the case), and the two > specific persons mentioned in previous emails needs to be examined. > > I think it would be a good idea if the exec board did a round of > interviews with all current employees of RIPE and maybe a couple > of former ones to get to the bottom of this issue. > > I think we all want this resolved, and fast please, we have business > to attend. > > -- > Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 > phk(a)FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 > FreeBSD coreteam member | BSD since 4.3-tahoe > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. > > -- > This message is confidential and solely for the intended addressee(s). If > you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the > sender immediately and delete it from your system. Unauthorised > reproduction, disclosure, modification and/or distribution of this e-mail > is strictly prohibited. The contents of this e-mail do not constitute a > commitment by Banca d'Intermediazione Mobiliare IMI S.p.A. (Banca IMI), > except where expressly provided for in a written agreement between you and > Banca IMI. > > Banca dIntermediazione Mobiliare IMI S.p.A. is an authorised Bank in > Italy. > Banca dIntermediazione Mobiliare IMI S.p.A., London Branch, a member of > the London Stock Exchange, > is regulated by the Securities and Futures Authority for the conduct of > investment business in the UK.

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I am disgusted
by Gareth Staff 19 Apr '00

19 Apr '00

There have been a lot of matters discussed in this work group over the last couple of weeks. Much of the information that both Stephen Burley and myself have been privy to has, admittedly, come from RIPE NCC hostmasters themselves. We are not talking about disgruntled employees spreading tales about their organisation, but rather dedicated individuals who wish to see their daily lives improve and be able to offer a good service to the members of this community. They could not contribute directly to these discussions because of the internal policies of the RIPE NCC. Now, many companies have non-disclosure agreements with their employees and rightly so. Many of the allusions I have made in my emails has had as it's source, emails from employees of the RIPE NCC. However, without their express permission to reveal this information, I have been necessarily circumspect with the information I have emailed to this list. Nevertheless, the RIPE NCC management have obviously taken great pains to ascertain the identities of these individuals since two RIPE NCC hostmasters have been sacked over this matter. Since there is now nothing more for them to lose, I am going to reveal the manner in which they were dismissed in order that the RIPE NCC have a chance to explain their actions. Before I do this however, I would like to pount out categorically that this email is not be to taken as being the views of my company, but rather as that of an individual who does not like to see people persecuted. The first person to be sacked, was not done so for revealing information to persons outside of the RIPE NCC. He was sacked for daring to take the managers to task and to try and get someone to improve the situation for the other hostmasters. I am not entirely certain if this person was already working his notice period, but the end result was that he was asked in to a managers office, fired, escorted home in a taxi whereupon his PC was confiscated. The second person to be sacked was done so for discussing internal RIPE NCC matters with a member. The internal matter in question was the internal policy that no-one gets any training whatsoever. She was off work sick when they sacked her, and although I won't give you the full story, it is going to take her a long time to put her life back in order I'm sure. I cannot imagine the feelings that the other RIPE NCC hostmasters must be feeling at this moment in time. Needless to say they are all probably scared sh*tless about losing their jobs, and you never know, I may even lose mine over this, since I have also dared to speak out. The difference however is that I am no longer trying to be constructive in my criticism and am openly condemning the gestapo-like tactics of the RIPE NCC management. I would like to point out to the RIPE NCC that I did not receive this information from a RIPE NCC hostmaster this time, but from a personal friend of those involved (that doesn't work for you) so you can call off your witch hunt. I am sure that many members of this list will be surprised at the vehemence of this email and dubious of the material that it contains. I would like to say that this situation has been brewing for several weeks, and has come to a head because I take the sacking of valued hostmasters seriously. Not just for the fact that they discussed internal matters with a member, but also for the manner in which the deed was done. At the end of the day, the hostmasters work for the community, at least they used to. It is time to get everything out in the open and demand that the RIPE NCC management remove their restrictions on letting their hostmasters contribute to this list so that you can ascertain the truth for yourselves and not have to rely on my heresay. Your truly, Gareth.

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RE: DB consistancy checking tools
by Matthew Robinson 18 Apr '00

18 Apr '00

Firstly my sincere apologies for not sorting something out earlier. I've spent most of my time either building networks or looking after my son Lewis, born 26/03/2000 (two weeks late), weighing 5450g or 12lbs 4oz (I like to over engineer)! The hospital didn't include any instructions and despite several detailed searches I have been unable to locate either a RIPE document or RFC detailed care of a newborn baby! Are people still interested in the idea of a users forum as described below and should we try to have a BoF in Budapest or do we still need more of an list based discussion? -----Original Message----- From: Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet [mailto:woeber@cc.univie.ac.at] Sent: 20 January 2000 14:55 To: matthew(a)planet.net.uk Cc: lir-wg(a)ripe.net; db-wg(a)ripe.net; woeber(a)cc.univie.ac.at Subject: RE: DB consistancy checking tools Matthew, I think this is an interesting proposal: >I have been wondering recently whether a separate group should be set up for >the sole purpose of creating tools/advise/methods/hints 'n' tips for LIR's >to keep on top of their entries and make management easier. A sort of RIPE >users working group not concerned with designing objects for the database >but how to put existing objects in it, remove them, manage them, etc. > >My 2c > >Matthew To start things moving, could you come up with a coarse draft of ideas and short-term goals to take up? On the more formal side, one of the possible solutions to accomodate that activity might be to create a TaskForce to work on well-defined items during RIPE35 (do you intend to particpate?). This TF might be supported by both LIR and DB, or sponsored by whichever group is seen to be appropriate...

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NCC issues and other threads
by Joao Luis Silva Damas 17 Apr '00

17 Apr '00

Dear all, I am finally back in Amsterdam (got in the airplane on Thursday afternooon, off the plane on Saturday morning) and I can now reply to your mails with the attention they deserve. Apologies if anyone thought we were not paying attention. First a formal point: some issues here seem to refer only to members of the RIPE NCC Association and the proper forum would therefore be the local-ir(a)ripe.net list, rather than the lir-wg(a)ripe.net, but anyway, since there is nothing to hide, I don't mind having this discussion here at all. Let's start by making a list of the points raised: 1) Getting the RIPE NCC hostmasters to get in touch with the day to day operations of ISPs and other members. 2) Training. 3) Who is the NCC accountable to. 4) Hostmaster turnover 5) The wait queue. Current situation. Statistics. Solutions. 1) This discussion started some time go and then died without an implementation decision. The RIPE NCC looked at the goals that were being requested by the membership, all legitimate, and studied the pros and cons of the proposed solution. We took into account the impact it would have if it were implemented as suggested and looked at other possible ways of achieving the same goals with the minimum possible impact. I think this is just sensible management of resources and I hope you agree with this so far. The RIPE NCC, as any other company needs to keep its employees up to speed with the environment they work in. This is achieved by training. The current internal training situation can definitively be improved and we took the initiative of hiring a technical advisor/trainer with the goal of having someone who can provide technical advise on latest technologies to hostmasters when they get complex requests and also, setting up a good internal training system to be able to get new hostmasters up to speed faster and then keep the ones that are already here up to date with developments in the Internet that affect hostmaster work (eg. new GSM/GPRS services, new approaches to network design people are using, etc). This person will be in charge of preparing and delivering this sort of internal training. We proposed using this function as a very good candidate to visit a few LIRs (not all of them are ISPs, by the way) so that the vision that is transmitted to the hostmasters is not only a "textbook" one but rather the practical applications and implementations are also analyzed as part of the courses. The original proposal to the LIR-WG was seen as having a very big impact for the NCC and as consuming too many resources. Of course, if the membership is willing to really put up with the additional costs to obtain what I think would be the same practical results, then fine with me, just propose it at the annual members meeting and we'll accomodate it in the budget. 2) The RIPE NCC's training policies are pretty much internal, like salaries, HR policies, etc. We will not normally discuss such internal matters with the membership other than in the proper forums, of which this is not one. I think the General Manager, as main interface to the members will be able to elaborate on this if requested. In my opinion, the membership should evaluate the results, which as I said before can be improved (and we are already taking steps to do so). I don't think it is appropriate to report here on which hostmasters (or other NCC staff) attend which courses, when, where or why. I would like to add though that the only issue we have had with training has been a recent incident where a member of staff enrolled in a course without waiting for a response from management. 3) Well, this is actually pretty obvious. We are accountable to the membership as represented by themselves and the Executive Board. 4) Lately we have had a bigger than usual turnover, which has strained Registration Services. We are addressing this by implementing better internal training and some other modifications in the way work is carried out in order to make the hostmaster work less tedious, more efficient and more satisfying. We hope this will reduce turnover. It will also diminish the impact of the remaining turnover, which will never be zero. 5) The wait queue is currently high, or at least higher than we want it to be. It currently stands at about a week. Most people here are trying very hard to get a quick ticket response time, but there are several factors that have so far prevented this bo noticed by you. During the last 3-4 months the rate of incoming requests is about 50% higher than it had been last year. To make matters worse, the sickness rate has been above average. Since taking over the position of Head of External Services 2 months ago, I have embarked, together with Nurani Nimpuno [Registration Services Manager] in a full review of the current situation, looking at staffing issues, training, work environment, etc in order to improve things wherever possible. A preliminary view indicates that there is a lot of room for improvement in the tools that hostmasters use. Software development does, however take some time to get from requirements, to desgin, to implementation. In the meantime, the way to get the wait queue down is to throw more human resources at the problem. We have recently offered positions to 4 new hostmasters (in part to replace some that are leaving, to be musicians, webmasters and system administrators) and to increase the total amount of people dealing with tickets. We may hire some more in the near future. At the same time, as I said above, we are working on improving the startup period of hostmasters and the life quality of existing hostmasters by hiring an advisor/trainer. We shall present statistics about the current profile of requests as well as other matters relating to the tickets handled by hostmasters in the upcoming RIPE meeting (Budapest). From those statistics we can probably discuss if any changes to the assignement window would affect the situation. This is a registration policy and therefore up for debate by lir-wg. The RIPE NCC shall make a recommendation at the meeting, if the wg chair agrees to put this on the agenda (there will be a few more policy related question, I hope, soon). So this is it for now. Apologies for the long mail If you feel I have left out some points from the discussion that you would like to see discussed, feel free to raise them and I will address them. Jetlagged, Joao

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RE: RIPE NCC Issues
by Gareth Staff 17 Apr '00

17 Apr '00

> -----Original Message----- > From: mike.norris(a)heanet.ie [mailto:mike.norris@heanet.ie] > Sent: 17 April 2000 16:18 > To: 'Gareth Staff'; lir-wg(a)ripe.net > Subject: RE: RIPE NCC Issues > > > > > My primary concern is the current turnover of hostmasters > that deal with > all > > of our requests. A high turnover of staff is almost always > a result of > poor > > management, and unless this is addressed, all other issues become > secondary. > > I appreciate your concerns, but you may be going out on a limb with > assumptions and implications like the above. Recruitment of > hostmasters > is a long-standing feature of RIPE NCC, as they try to cope with the > rising demand for service from existing and new LIRs. We members who > adopt the annual plan of RIPE NCC invariably get it wrong, > underpredict > growth rate and leave management with the task of trying to > catch up and > fill the gaps. > > Right now, there is a slow-down in the service, due largely > to a sudden and > large upsurge > in the number of requests; this has happened in a time frame > much shorter > than that > associated with hostmaster recruitment, so there has been a > shortfall in > resources to deal with the demand. > > Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that RIPE NCC couldn't do > better, or that > this is UUnet's fault as a member. Indeed, UUnet has always > been more than > exemplary in its role as an active member of RIPE NCC, to the > benefit of the > rest of us; your concern in this instance is witness to that. > But it's not > right to say that RIPE NCC management does not give top > priority to its core > business as the regional IP registry, nor is it fair to imply > that such > management > is poor. Point taken :o) I will bide my time as far as further comments go, and will await developments. > Regards. > > Mike Norris > Regards, Gareth Staff.

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RE: RIPE NCC Issues
by mike.norris＠heanet.ie 17 Apr '00

17 Apr '00

> My primary concern is the current turnover of hostmasters that deal with all > of our requests. A high turnover of staff is almost always a result of poor > management, and unless this is addressed, all other issues become secondary. I appreciate your concerns, but you may be going out on a limb with assumptions and implications like the above. Recruitment of hostmasters is a long-standing feature of RIPE NCC, as they try to cope with the rising demand for service from existing and new LIRs. We members who adopt the annual plan of RIPE NCC invariably get it wrong, underpredict growth rate and leave management with the task of trying to catch up and fill the gaps. Right now, there is a slow-down in the service, due largely to a sudden and large upsurge in the number of requests; this has happened in a time frame much shorter than that associated with hostmaster recruitment, so there has been a shortfall in resources to deal with the demand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that RIPE NCC couldn't do better, or that this is UUnet's fault as a member. Indeed, UUnet has always been more than exemplary in its role as an active member of RIPE NCC, to the benefit of the rest of us; your concern in this instance is witness to that. But it's not right to say that RIPE NCC management does not give top priority to its core business as the regional IP registry, nor is it fair to imply that such management is poor. Regards. Mike Norris

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