ARIN Public Policy Meeting - October 18-19, 1999 [Archived]

DAY 1

The meeting was called to order by John Curran, ARIN’s Chairman of the Board, at 9:00 a.m. CST. Many countries were represented at the meeting. John provided welcoming comments and an overview of the 2-day event, and turned the meeting over to Kim Hubbard, ARIN President. Kim provided a walk through of the agenda and gave a brief description of ARIN’s background including the events that lead up to ARIN’s public policy meetings. Next, Dave Kessens from Qwest described the location and functionality of the terminal room that Qwest provided for attendees’ use during the meetings, then Ken Fockler provided an overview of the ICANN meeting held in Santiago, Chile.

ASO Update - The Santiago ICANN Meeting

Ken began by briefly describing the events that led up to the formation of the ASO, culminating in acceptance of the RIRs’ ASO proposal in Santiago. Key items at the meeting included bylaw changes regarding board terms, an extended period for the initial board, a uniform dispute resolution policy, inclusion of an at-large membership and at-large council, formation of an ad hoc group, a process for selecting the council, a process for independent review, and a discussion of funding for the ICANN.

Kim introduced Mike Roberts, ICANN President and CEO, to describe the ad hoc group who explained that an approved draft for the ad hoc group will be made available for comment and a meeting for the initial composition of the group will be held on November 2.

ICANN Board Presentation

Kim introduced Esther Dyson, ICANN’s Interim Chairman, who expressed thanks for all those supporting the ICANN process. Esther explained the ICANN board’s approach to its responsibilities, and invited all to attend ICANN’s annual meeting in Los Angeles, California, on November 1-4. Dispute resolution policy and funding for ICANN are among issues on the agenda.

The board members terms were extended to September or until a director is replaced by a newly elected at-large director. The constitution of the board will begin with three directors elected from each of the Supporting Organizations recently formed and will be in place before the LA meeting is held.

Esther explained that the target audience among the 5,000 at large members includes trademark owners, individual interests not associated with large corporations, those outside the U.S., and those who are not ISPs. ICANN will be addressing issues such as how to reach these people, how they can sign up as a member, and how to participate.

Kim commented that a task force was created to discuss ICANN funding. ICANN’s base budget is approximately $4 M, which is tentatively to be divided as follows: gTLDs - 55%, ccTLDs - 35%, and RIRs - 10%. The RIRs are discussing with ICANN whether 10% is appropriate, and maintain that if the RIRs cannot afford their full share of the amount, customer fees might need to be raised. Other sources of funding will also be considered.

ASO Memorandum of Understanding

Scott Bradner, ARIN Board member, described the context of the ICANN, ASO, and their structures, as well as their duties and policy development methods. He presented the purpose and scope of the MoU, including the composition, actions, and responsibilities of the Address Council.

The ASO’s processes and documents will be open due to such procedures as making formal communications available on the web, publicly archiving mailing lists, posting meeting schedules, and maintaining its own web site. He also explained that the ASO has no role in contract matters between ICANN and the RIRs, and that the MoU allows for the inclusion of new RIRs. Next, Kim introduced the signatories of the MoU for the signing ceremony:

• Paul Wilson, APNIC Director General
• John Crain, RIPE NCC Head Internal Services
• Mike Roberts, ICANN President and CEO
• Kim Hubbard, ARIN President

ASO AC Elections - ARIN Region

Kim introduced the six nominees, of which Raimundo Beca and Cathy Wittbrodt were in attendance and presented their qualifications. John Curran read the biographies of those who were not able to attend. The terms of these seats (1, 2, and 3 years) would be determined by the number of votes received by each candidate, that is, the candidate with the most votes would get the longest term, and so on. Ballots were cast and the announced winners are: Cathy Wittbrodt (3-year term) Dave Meyer (2-year term) and Raimundo Beca (1-year term).

Kim then opened a discussion on how future ASO AC elections should be held. Some felt that online elections should be used in the future so that everyone in ARIN’s region could participate. Other comments included: how to avoid votes being cast solely for political reasons, applying registration or verification for voting, requiring voters to participant in other ARIN activities, and how to fund the process.

Whether it is the responsibility of the Board, a new committee, or the three AC members to formulate the election process is yet to be decided. John Crain suggested that education throughout the region would make people aware of the process and the need for getting involved. Kim asked for volunteers from the attendees to form a group to meet later and discuss this issue. Eight came forward: Gene Jakominich, Pete Bowden, Justin Newton, German Valdez, Barbara Roseman, Aaron Dudek, Raimundo Beca, and Mouhamet Diop.

ARIN Operational Update

Kim introduced Roger Halls, ARIN’s Director of Operations, who presented an overview of Engineering staff activities over the recent months and provided statistics on the number of WHOIS queries and routing registry queries received.

Completed projects for the year include: a production IPv6 system, a new web site, an E-commerce program (in its final testing phase), Y2K compliance, a web-based election system, and improvements to template processing. Future projects include: automation of the routing registry, WHOIS, RWHOIS, and SWIP; development of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for integrating registration and accounting systems and functions; addition of new metrics for compiling statistics; installation of redundant servers at APNIC and RIPE NCC; and the provision of automated member tools. Plans are also in the works for each of the RIRs to transfer legacy address to their proper region so that the space can be maintained by that region’s RIR.

Next, Richard Jimmerson, Supervisor of the Registration Services Group, described the status of the group’s staff and the day-to-day tasks they perform. Working closely with Engineering personnel, the group undertook projects such as Y2K compliance, development of IPv6, development of a routing registry, ongoing database cleanup, and internal training of RSG staff. Richard provided various statistics, including the number of phone calls and IP requests received, IP requests approved, and multi-homed organizations. He continued with other IP statistics and indicated that ARIN has received three IPv6 requests, one of which was approved, one is pending, and one had just been received.

Kim then introduced Michael O’Neill, Senior IP Analyst, who described ARIN’s routing registry that was launched in February. Issues discussed included distribution of routing registry data, expansion of information to include other RIRs’ data, whether routing registry violators should be pursued, and whether queries should be available to members only.

ARIN is currently making allocations out of block 216 /8, which will soon be exhausted, and will begin making allocations from 64.0.0.0 /8 in the next few months. Kim stated that we have to start allocating from class As and class Bs again. A discussion ensued as to whether /8s from Net 64 are routable. The Database Working Group will address this issue and a web page will be set up for information dissemination.

Day 1 Wrap Up

Descriptions to the evening’s tutorials and the next day’s working group meetings were presented followed by a question and answer period. Bill Darte, chair of the CLEW, welcomed all to provide input on forming documentation development procedures for subjects relating to the ICANN, ASO, online voting, and other areas. John Crain raised the question: At what level should we educate, and at what level should we limit education so that we do not go beyond our scope of responsibility? This discussion will be reserved for CLEW. On the topic of IPv6, there is no projection at this time for its use and a show of hands indicated that none of the attendees have specific plans to begin using IPv6.

After the evening dinner break, Richard provided ARIN’s tutorial on how to request space from ARIN, followed by Howard Berkowitz’s presentation on Managing Your Allocation. These tutorials generated a great deal of interest and were well attended. They will be posted to ARIN’s web site.

DAY 2

For the morning session of day 2, the IP Allocation Policies Working Group and the Database Implementation Working Group (DBWG) met to discuss issues within their respective areas. Minutes of these meetings are posted on ARIN’s web site. In the afternoon, the plenary session reconvened for the two working groups to report on their meetings, and for other registries to make presentations.

RIPE NCC

First, John Crain explained the difference between RIPE and RIPE NCC. RIPE provides coordination services for the European community and does so through working groups, mailing lists, and hosting meetings.

RIPE NCC provides registry functions such as allocating IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and providing reverse delegation, database maintenance, and educational services. RIPE NCC is a nonprofit with 1,500 members and a staff of 57 professionals from 22 nationalities. John went on to provide statistics relating to their IP operations. The RIPE community has selected as their representatives to the ASO Address Council Sabine Jaume from France, Hans Petter Holen from Norway, and Wilfried Woeber from Austria. For further details about this RIR, visit the RIPE NCC presentation.

APNIC

Next, Paul Wilson provided a summary of APNIC’s IP-related statistics. Paul began with an overview of APNIC’s operations, explaining its interaction with confederations and National Internet Registries, as well as plans for hosting an iDNS server. APNIC has 354 members from 34 countries, and a staff of 13. To date, it has received seven IPv6 requests and has allocated five blocks. As the secretariat for the ASO during its first year of operation, APNIC is hosting the ASO web site.

LACNIC

German Valdez, a board member of the proposed LACNIC (www.lacnic.org), reported on the progress of the new registry’s formation. He commented on the presentation of a creation agreement at the Santiago meeting, that an interim board for the registry has been established, and the organization has gained the support of the ISPs, local IRs, telecom organizations, and carriers in its designated region, which is Latin America and the Caribbean. The location of its office will be decided at its general assembly which is expected to be held in early to mid-2000. Organizations representing the initial board will fund the registry during its start-up phase. Its operations will be divided by Brazil NIC and Mexican NIC, but this is not yet clearly defined. ARIN will be providing expertise and training support during early stages of its operations.

AFRINIC

After being introduced, Mouhamet Diop, from Senegal, provided an update of the formation of the proposed AFRINIC (www.afrinic.org). At it’s first meeting held in December 1998, a document for its formation was accepted. Mouhamet explained that the registry’s main objective is to become a neutral, transparent nonprofit organization assisting the African community, providing educational support, and developing public policies. The registry has presented a document to ICANN for recognition, elected a provisional board consisting of two each from: North, East, West, Central, Southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean, and is organizing its first general assembly. However, the country and location of the operation is yet to be selected. The RIRs were requested to form a technical committee to help determine where AFRINIC should be located and to help operationally during its startup phase.

IP Allocations Policies Working Group

The chair of this WG, Alec Peterson, described the group’s discussions on revising RFC 2050. One change involved revising end-user utilization guides from the current 25% immediate utilization and 50% utilization within 1 year, to 50% immediate utilization and 80% utilization within 1 year. They also discussed reclaiming address space and how or if it should be reclaimed. Under consideration was a lowering of the multi-homed requirement to /24 so that small entities that don’t qualify to receive IPs from ARIN under the current guidelines can receive address space. How this would affect the routing tables would have to be addressed. In conclusion, Cathy Wittbrodt will look at the /20s that have been allocated to check whether the routing tables are affected because of ARIN’s lowering of the allocation size from /19 to /20 this past February.

Database Implementation Working Group

Jeremy Porter, DBWG chair, explained that several issues have been under discussion, the first of which involves adding security and authentication to SWIP processing. Other topics included: mirroring top-level RWHOIS, integrating SWIP and RWHOIS so that in-addrs can be bundled with RWHOIS, developing a SWIP parser for members to verify data before submitting templates, changing SWIP parser from running once a day to running when an email is received, addressing the reuse of handles when a network is deleted, and expanding SWIP POC information. A show of hands revealed that a majority of the attendees use SWIP compared to RWHOIS. Minutes of their meeting will be posted to the members list. Regarding RWHOIS, Mark Kosters, who is developing RWHOIS at InterNIC, is putting patches on the initial version, and his staff will continue to develop it further. The question remains as to what should be done with version 2.

Future PPM Meetings

Comments about the 2-days’ events were very favorable - the meetings provided much needed education, and network access and wireless connections were pluses. Allowing for more time to hold working group discussions was one suggestion offered, while everyone resoundingly voiced a desire to have more fruit and ice cream! The majority of attendees expressed a desire to see the other RIRs continue to participate in each meeting.

In closing comments, possible hosts for the next public policy meeting in April 2000 were suggested. One final comment suggested that number exhaustion should be monitored, whereupon ARIN agreed to monitor IPs. The meeting was adjourned with an invitation from Kim for all those interested to join in the reception planned for the evening and a special thanks to Qwestfor hosting these activities.

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