Community Organizations

ARIN works in close coordination with other RIRs, national and international community organizations, and local and national governments. These groups are operated by and for the Internet user community. ARIN enjoys a comprehensive relationship with each of these bodies and participates in all of their meetings throughout the year.

Among the organizations are:

ICANN/ASO

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, nonprofit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. These services were originally performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other entities. ICANN now performs the IANA function.

As a private-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

The Board of ICANN is composed of nineteen Directors: nine At-Large Directors, nine selected by ICANN's three supporting organizations, and the President/CEO (ex officio). Five of the current At-Large Directors were selected according to a vote of Internet users worldwide.

For more information about ICANN, please visit its website at http://www.icann.org.

IANA

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority's role is to allocate IP addresses from the pools of unallocated addresses to the RIRs according to their established needs. When an RIR requires more IP addresses for allocation or assignment within its region, the IANA makes an additional allocation to the RIR.

See http://www.iana.org/ipaddress/ip-addresses.htm for more information on IANA.

ASO

ASO Formation and Function

The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) is one of three Supporting Organizations called for in the ICANN Bylaws to be "formed through community consensus." The purpose of the ASO is to review and develop recommendations on IP address policy and to advise the ICANN Board on these matters.

In July 1999, the three currently existing Regional Internet Registries (APNIC, ARIN, and RIPE NCC) submitted a proposal to form the ASO on the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding. ICANN accepted this proposal on 26 August 1999.

The ASO was subsequently formed on 19 October 1999, when the MoU was signed by representatives of the RIRs and ICANN, during the ARIN IV Public Policy Meeting in Denver, CO, USA.

The ASO Address Council

Under the terms of the MoU signed between ICANN and the NRO in October 2004, the NRO Number Council now performs the role of the ASO Address Council. ARIN's three representatives (two elected, one appointed) to the NRO Number Council actively participate in fulfilling the responsibilites of the ASO AC on behalf of the ARIN region.

IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.

The technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups, which are organized by topic into several areas (e.g., routing, transport, security, etc.). Much of the work is handled via IETF mailing lists. The IETF holds meetings three times per year.

The IETF working groups are grouped into areas, and managed by Area Directors, or ADs. The ADs are members of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Providing architectural oversight is the Internet Architecture Board, (IAB). The IAB also adjudicates appeals when someone complains that the IESG has failed. The IAB and IESG are chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) for these purposes. The General Area Director also serves as the chair of the IESG and of the IETF, and is an ex-officio member of the IAB.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols. The IANA is chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) to act as the clearinghouse to assign and coordinate the use of numerous Internet protocol parameters.

First-time attendees might find it helpful to read The Tao of the IETF. This was published as RFC3160.

ARIN staff actively participate in many of the IETF working groups.

For more information about the IETF, visit its website at http://www.ietf.org.

ISOC

The Internet Society (ISOC) is a professional membership society with more than 150 organizational and 16,000 individual members in over 180 countries. It provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). ARIN is a platinum member of ISOC.

The Society's individual and organization members are bound by a common stake in maintaining the viability and global scaling of the Internet. They comprise the companies, government agencies, and foundations that have created the Internet and its technologies as well as innovative new entrepreneurial organizations contributing to maintain that dynamic. Visit their home pages to see how Internet innovators are creatively using the network.

The Society is governed by its Board of Trustees elected by its membership around the world.

ARIN is a platinum member of ISOC and earmarks its contribution to support the RFC Editor.

For more information about ISOC, visit its website at http://www.isoc.org.

NANOG

The North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) provides a forum for the exchange of technical information and promotes discussion of implementation issues that require community cooperation. Coordination among network service providers helps ensure the stability of overall service to network users.

Three yearly NANOG meetings are organized by Merit Network, Inc., a nonprofit Michigan organization, and are hosted by Merit and other organizations around the U.S. and Canada.

NANOG evolved from the NSFNET "regional-techs" meetings, where technical staff from the regional networks met to discuss operational issues of common concern with the Merit engineering staff. At the February 1994 regional techs meeting in San Diego, the group revised its charter to include a broader base of network service providers, and subsequently adopted NANOG as its new name.

Funding for NANOG originally came from the National Science Foundation, as part of two projects Merit undertook in partnership with NSF and other organizations: the NSFNET Backbone Service and the Routing Arbiter project. All NANOG funds now come from conference registration fees and donations from vendors.

Since 2002, ARIN has held its fourth quarter Public Policy and Members Meeting back-to-back with the NANOG meeting in order to gain additional network operator input into the public policy discussions on IP address issues. Since 2003, NANOG meeting attendees have had the opportunity to vote in the election for an NRO NC representative from the ARIN region.

For more information about NANOG, visit its website at http://www.nanog.org.