On 2024-11-04 14:30, Timo Hilbrink via members-discuss wrote:
What do other members think about this, and has the RIPE NCC taken these consequences into account when they decided to move all this data and services to U.S. based hyperscalers?
Thanks for speaking up Timo. It's important this gets raised at every opportunity. Yes, other members are concerned about data sovereignty and the use of 3rd party providers, to the extent that it was highlighted in the 2023 RIPE NCC Survey. I wrote[1] at the time "Aside from obvious issues like IPv4 hoarding and security threats, I find it interesting that the following points were raised by enough members to warrant mention in the report:" followed by some quotes from the report: "A perceived rise in goverment influence, both democratic and authoritarian, and geopolitical tensions that threaten Internet neutrality are also seen as a challenge to Internet stability … comments indicated that threats from governments (very much including the EU) to control the Internet" will lead to "fragmentation due to differing regulations, censorship, and geopolitical tensions" and "Comments also highlighted concerns about "over-reliance" on 3rd party vendors, particularly "large, US-based cloud resources", with some members instead wanting ... "greater use of open-source software" In general I've found RIPE to be well run and focused compared to other similar organisations, but over-reliance on 3rd party services particulaly (US companies which undermine EU law) and a willingness to use suppliers that don't even support IPv6 (such as the voting platform for the past AGM) are concerning. It makes little sense IMHO to outsource the physical hosting, but keep the more expensive and technical skills required to maintain these servers in-house. To my knowlege Amazon and Google aren't providing managed hosting - just the servers, which is by far the easiest part to maintain. I'm dubious that there are any significant cost savings to be had by moving things to the "cloud". There are a variety of colo providers in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe more than capable. Cheers, Brett [1] https://blog.brettsheffield.com/ripe-ncc-2023-survey Brett Sheffield Gladserv