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Re: ARIN Policy on IP-based Web Hosting

  • From: Kai Schlichting
  • Date: Wed Aug 30 11:38:49 2000

>ARIN's new web hosting policy has recently been under discussion on the
>ARIN IP allocations policy mailing list. 
>See http://www.arin.net/members/mailing.htm.  
>
>The policy is described at
>	
>	http://www.arin.net/announcements/policy_changes.html
>
>Some individuals have expressed their disagreement with this new policy.
>Should the ARIN web hosting policy be changed?
>

while I can be accused of being ignorant about ARIN matters, and this
first came to my attention through the NANOG list, I have to say that
this policy that (and many seem to miss that) HAS ALREADY BEEN IMPLEMENTED
unduly restricts hosting companies from doing proper business:

- SSL will not go away anytime soon. Billions have been spent on
  software to run it, certificates generated, signed and issued, expertise
  gained and management software written. How can ARIN ignore this existing
  investment and expertise and how dare it try to throw it out with
  the bathwater from literally one day to another?

- How does ARIN think people are doing QoS for such large assemblies of
  hosted websites, or billing? Answer: by IP number with more simpler
  L-3 QoS enforcers such as Cisco CAR/GTS, Linux and BSDI-based
  rate-shaping.
  Why should webhosters start shelling out big bucks for Layer 5-7
  intelligent switches in a market that is already seeing the $5/mo website?
  IP numbers are cheap, Layer 4-7 switches are disproportionally expensive.

  In a time when shortage of IP space should theoretically no longer
  be an issue, IPv6 allocation guidelines are pretty much ensuring that
  only the biggest players with the most engineering resources actually
  have a shot at IPv6: how do you suppose IPv6 expertise will be
  built on a large scale, when 1/2 to fully 3/4's of network engineers,
  website managers, DNS managers are working in places that are too
  small to get their own allocation of IPv6 IP space?
  There are lots of places, probably using the majority of all IP space,
  where the business model and economics of scale just make no sense to
  become ARIN member to get IP space, and instead IP space continues to be
  received as PA space from providers who have no real incentive or
  immediate plans to provide IPv6 service, with the incentive of the
  customers ASKING for IPv6 service never happening for that reason ?

  This is a giant distortion of the market, that will ultimately prevent
  IPv6 from ever getting deployed on a large scale, or only when it's
  too late. Already, people are too fixated on securing IPv4 space as
  property, with ARIN hopelessly trying to stem the flood, when all these
  efforts are ultimately doomed: giving the boat up when it's half full
  of water in order to make the jump to a bigger boat is a good idea.
  Stop the bucket line. Abandon ship.