RIPE NCC Participation at MENOG 15

MENOG 15 took place from 1-2 April at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Dubai. The meeting was well attended, with 177 attendees from 30 countries.

RIPE NCC reports included an update from Managing Director Axel Pawlik on the organisation's main activities and operations, including the growing momentum around IPv6, IPv4 allocations and transfers, the RIPE NCC's expanded regional presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, member consultations, the RIPE NCC's redesigned website, policy developments, the IANA stewardship transition and the upcoming General Meeting, in which he encouraged members to vote.

Andrew de la Haye, the RIPE NCC's Chief Operations Officer, gave an overview of what's been happening with IPv4 transfers in the RIPE NCC service region. He explained how RIPE NCC members can obtain their final IPv4 allocation as well as IPv6 allocations, how IPv4 transfers take place and the RIPE NCC's role in the process, which is to keep the registry up to date.

Paul Rendek, Director of External Relations, gave an update on the IANA stewardship transition, the RIPE NCC's role, which includes participating on the team responsible for developing an SLA agreement, and the next steps in the process.

Kaveh Ranjbar, Chief Information Officer, gave an overview of the current status and future plans for the RIPE NCC's technical services, including RIPE Atlas, RIPEstat, DNS services, research and analyses performed by the RIPE NCC, and plans for an expansion of the K-root name server cluster that will let organisations request their own K-root instance – something that garnered significant interest from several attendees.

Christian Teuschel, a Senior Software Engineer, gave a technical overview of the RIPE NCC's Internet measurements collection system, RIPE Atlas, and its main data provisioning tool, RIPEstat. RIPE Atlas highlights included the “quick look” feature, which lets users ping a specified IP address using 100 probes from around the world and displays results as they are collected in virtually real time. Examples from RIPEstat included tools for analysing IPv4 transfers, BGP routing, and geolocation data.

Other topics presented included a look at where content is hosted throughout the Middle East region, the need for IXPs in the region, cyber security and recent high-level security breaches, an update on the IETF's activities, smart cities, and a BoF about Network Operators Groups (NOGs), their benefits, and how to start one in your region.

There were also six lightning talks on a range of topics, from what to do about spamming and how network operators can benefit from academic partnerships, to a forecast of future IPv4 transfers and the IETF's efforts to push IPv6.

The MENOG Coordination Committee received good feedback from those in attendance about the agenda and encouraged everyone to let them know what kind of content they're interested in for the future. Based on feedback received, they also said they will look into the best channels to continue discussions in between meetings, ways to rate the presenters and presentations, and possible locations for future MENOG Meetings.

All available presentations are now online.