Dear all, At the last RIPE meeting (RIPE 39) in Bologna, the issue of criteria for PA Allocations was discussed in the LIR-WG. The presentation delivered is available from: http://www.ripe.net/meetings/archive/ripe-39/presentations/ (Please also refer to the mail sent out to the lir-working group the 25 April at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/lir-wg/current/msg00056.html We would like the communities input on this matter. The problem brought up was the lack of clear and consistent policy on portable address space. Currently two types of portable address space are available: - Provider Aggregatable (PA) Allocations - Provider Independent (PI) Assignments The discussion was focused on criteria for PA Allocations as this is where the most significant policy inconsistency can be found. Current criteria for initial PA Allocations are: - Membership (You are required to be a member in order to get your first allocation. The RIPE NCC membership is open, anyone can become a member.) - Justification of first assignment (You are required to justify the first assignment you make out of your allocation. There is no minimum assignment size.) The minimal PA Allocation size is currently a /20 (= 4096 IP addresses) This means in reality that anyone who can justify one IP address is eligible for 4096 addresses. With an increased demand for independence and multi-homing, the RIPE NCC can see the consequences of this in the impressive membership growth in the last years: New LIRs set up per year: 1997: 262 1998: 446 1999: 525 2000: 865 2001: 997 (projected, end of year) The RIPE NCC has experienced several cases where organisations have insisted on becoming members in order to receive a portable /20 address block despite the fact they clearly state that their need is for less, in some cases only for c:a 300 addresses. We also observe organisations who become LIRs with the pure objective of obtaining portable address space but who are unaware of the responsibilities and workload membership comprises. As all assignments made are based on need, there is clearly a policy inconsistency in the fact that allocations currently do not require any such justification. Consensus was reached in the LIR-WG at RIPE 39 that a set of criteria should be defined for obtaining an initial PA Allocation. The working group also agreed that the exact details of those criteria should be further discussed on the mailing list. Extending the logic of basing address assignments on need and previous utilisation to allocations, I therefore put forward the following proposal: Proposed Initial PA Allocation Criteria: - Demonstrated efficient utilisation of a /xx (/22?) Or - Immediate need for a /xx (/22?) - Agree to renumber (Required? Recommended?) As the need for portable address space is a complex matter, I would like to propose to first focus this discussion on defining these criteria. The matter clearly also touches on the matter of PI Assignments, which is something I would like to encourage further discussion on. However, I would like start by requesting the communities input on the matter of initial PA Allocation criteria. Kind regards, Nurani Nimpuno +------------------------------------+ | Nurani Nimpuno | | Registration Services Manager | | RIPE Network Co-ordination Centre | | http://www.ripe.net | +------------------------------------+ Relevant studies: ----------------- Philip Smith "Studies of the routing table": http://www.apnic.net/stats/bgp/ Geoff Huston "Measuring BGP": http://www.apnic.net/meetings/presentations/apricot01.ppt http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-bgparch-00.txt Scott Marcus "ASN Growth": http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/archive/ripe-38/index.html RIS report / BGP prefix distribution: http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/np/ris-index.html