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Re: ARIN, was Re: 72/8 friendly reminder

  • From: Edward Lewis
  • Date: Thu Mar 24 16:35:56 2005

At 12:53 -0800 3/24/05, Owen DeLong wrote:

NO.  Operational specifications and routing are the domain of the IETF
and _NOT_ ARIN.  ARIN is responsible for the stewardship of assigned
numbers within the ARIN region.  This includes IP addresses, Autonomous
System Numbers, and, DNS delegations for reverses on IP addresses.
While ARIN should consider routing issues and the operational impact
of ARIN stewardship policies, and, ARIN also has an educational role
in helping the community to understand BCP including operational
BCP as it relates to IP Addresses, ASNs, and DNS, ARIN has no role
in dictating or driving operational practices.
My question is not related to specification development but operational requirements of ARIN itself providing a service based on specifications.

E.g., picking something a bit more concrete that secure routing, should ARIN deploy DNSSEC support, once it is published (again), in 6 months? 12 months? 10 years? This will tell the staff what level of staffing is needed to accomplish the work. The policy discussion will let membership know whether it is willing to pay for this. (Open to the public or not, the membership determines what it pays.)

Discretionary funding for supporting research within the IETF should exist too, to cover participation in development of specifications at an appropriate level of effort.

Let's say DNSSEC is ready for deployment. Does the impetus come from the ARIN staff or from the membership? (Maybe it comes from outside, but does it need to be made into a policy before the staff implements it?)

I'm not sure ARIN has a change or innovation role.  It is not unlikely
that responsible stewardship includes a minimum of change and a
preservation of stability and consistency.
ARIN has two definite roles when it comes to innovation. 1) Don't get in the way of innovation by the community and 2) provide expert advice when it comes to the development of specifications related to RIR functions. And ARIN ought to be wary of trends in the improvement of its internal operations.

An example of role number 1 is providing DNS services over IPv6 transport. An example of role number 2 is contributing to the discussion of the IRIS definitions for address registries. In neither case is ARIN leading the charge, but is playing a part in innovation.

To come back to secure routing, the reason ARIN would be involved is that ARIN would be asked to publish information on who is allocated number resources. Although this is done in WhoIs now, there is a need to do this via whatever format is required by "secure routing." I'm sure the specification of secure routing will describe how to operate the protocol, but not address the server capacity nor topology needed.

Perhaps policies aren't the vehicle, but then how does the operational community get ARIN to supply services?


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Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468
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Achieving total enlightenment has taught me that ignorance is bliss.