ARIN, was Re: 72/8 friendly reminder
Edward Lewis
Ed.Lewis at neustar.biz
Thu Mar 24 20:20:08 UTC 2005
At 17:01 +0000 3/24/05, Andrew Dul wrote:
>I agree, I'd certainly like to see more people actively participate in the
>process. If nanog folks believe that the ARIN membership is not getting the
>right stuff done... How do we fix this problem? How do we get more
>operators involved and active in the RIRs?
In the spirit of cart and horse, it's not about getting more
operators involved in ARIN. It's about getting operators to use ARIN
as a resource in the proper way. (I'm addressing operators here as
this is NANOG.)
What do operators expect from ARIN? Most ARIN policies are centered
on the administrative function of allocation of address space and AS
numbers. Is that all there is? Are the existing policies all that
are needed?
Are there concerns about the live-in-the-network registry services
like WhoIs, DNS, IRIS, routing registry? There are not many policy
proposals (lame delegations, privacy concerns with WhoIs) in play
covering operational considerations.
ARIN staff has begun work on documenting the registry service level
agreements, there was a presentation on this in October. There has
been little discussion on this by anyone since the presentation. If
WhoIs is out, reports fly on NANOG. But has anyone ever tried to
quantify what level of service is expected of ARIN's computing
facilities? If the staff is doing a good thing by documenting SLA's,
then they should be encouraged to continue.
There is routing security research work that would require the RIR's
to issue certificates for use in route update validation. I would
hope that someday, before anything goes live, there are operator-led
tests involving support from ARIN.
>I think colocating 1 ARIN meeting/per year with Nanog in the fall has been a
>help.
I would caution that "attending meetings" is neither a sign of
contribution nor a sign of progress. Don't get me wrong, making
meetings easier to attend is good, but we shouldn't attend meetings
because it is easy, fun or entertaining. I prefer to have fun at
home.
>ARIN isn't perfect but it could be a lot worse. In some ways I think the
>issue you describe is an industry wide problem. There are many different
>groups (RIRs, ICANN, IETF, Nanogs, etc...) and participating in all of them
>is a lot of effort, especially when most of us already have full-time jobs.
Participating in all of them *is* a full-time job. ;)
>We could of course create a huge beuarcratcy with lots of people to study the
>issues and make policy, but that hasn't been the way the Internet has
>developed and is counter to what many operators think is best for the
>Internet. That also requires money. Is that what people want? I don't
>think so, but I could be wrong.
One the one hand, what built the Internet isn't what will maintain
it. A bureaucracy will be needed, the challenge isn't to prevent it
but to build the best one possible.
If ARIN goes unchecked it'll either be a weakened organization unable
to serve the community (chaos ensues) or it will become an ogre,
burdening the community (suffocation). It benefits operators to be
involved, but the real trick is to realize what kind of involvement
is needed.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar
Achieving total enlightenment has taught me that ignorance is bliss.
More information about the NANOG
mailing list