Hello! I just got a new LIR for one of my employer, everything was quick and fine ;) Of course, every work need some experience. LIR is a status giving you an ability to assign IP addresses to users. It is like registrar in domain name system. So if you need to provide that kind of service - you need experienced people can do all technical work, isn't it? I think generally that is not a work of network admin at all. Often LIR is misunderstanding with a block of IPs and AS. If you just need that, you don't need to become a LIR. It is like if you want to have mycoodlomain.ru, you don't really need to become a .ru registrar to register that domain by yourself.
Have any of you recently tried to become a new LIR?! I am helping an organization become a LIR and they pointed out many items that I think the RIPE NCC needs to take account of. Here is what they are doing:
1) User goes to www.ripe.net
2) User clicks on 'membership' in left panel
3) User now goes to http://www.ripe.net/membership/
4) User now clicks on 'become a member'
5) User now on http://www.ripe.net/membership/new-members/index.html
6) User now clicks on "Updated Procedure for Becoming a New RIPE NCC LIR [08 June 2004]"
7) User now on http://www.ripe.net/membership/new-members/new-form-20040608.html
8) User now clicks on "More information on the new LIR procedure can be found here."
9) User now redirected to https://lirportal.ripe.net/newmember/index.html
10) User clicks 'I agree' at bottom
11) User now starts online application at: https://lirportal.ripe.net/newmember/MemberApplication.html
12) User now supplies name and email and clicks next
13) User now is asked for lots of legal info and clicks next
14) user is now asked for lots of billing info and clicks next
15) User is now asked for registry data and clicks next
16) User is now asked for mailing list subscriptions and clicks next
17) User is asked to provide remarks and clicks next
18) User now can submit the form
Now imagine a network admin is asked by his/her company to become a LIR. He/she has never worked with RIPE. They follow the process and get to step 13. They stop what they are doing and contact their bosses and lawyers about filling in the legal info. They accumulate the answers after a few phone calls and emails and now move inward to step 14. Now they call the accounting dept and get the necessary info to complete this screen. Hit next. Now they call the head of the IT dept and ask who should be added as a contact person. Hit next. Whoops. Now I need to know who from the IT dept should be getting local-ir and ncc-co emails. Call back IT dept head.
Confused yet? RIPE-303 which is now obsolete, but was the last available 'Procedure for becoming a LIR', states in section 2 that one has to sign an official contract with RIPE: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/service-agreement.html (ripe-320). RIPE-320 is *not* obsolete, so I guess one does have to, but the new Lirportal procedure makes no reference to it at all (steps 1-18). Since ripe-303 is obsolete, a new user would normally not read it and therefore would not know about ripe-320.
IMHO, the entire new LIR procedure has been made very cumbersome and non-intuitive and has not been reviewed for user friendliness. Previously, with ripe-230, one had all the info needed in one spot and could see very clearly what info and data from within the company is needed to become a LIR. Nowadays, it is a 3 day job just to figure out what the LIR portal will be asking along the way.
I think that the RIPE NCC has to revise this entire procedure from the ground up.
Regards, Hank Nussbacher
-- WBR, Max Tulyev (MT6561-RIPE, 2:463/253@FIDO)