Summary of Proposal:

This proposal expands the RIPE NCC's ability to assign number resources for temporary purposes and allows the RIPE NCC to reserve pools of IP addresses and Autonomous System (AS) Numbers, which can be used by the RIPE NCC to make temporary direct assignments to End Users.

Key to this proposal is that all temporary resources assigned under this policy proposal are assigned on a strictly temporary basis, ensuring that they can be quickly re-assigned to other End Users after the assignment period expires.

The proposal is not intended to stretch the lifetime of the unallocated pool for assignments or allocations of indefinite duration.

The proposal is independent of other proposals to reserve address space for transition purposes and/or new entrants. It can be implemented independently of these.

As well as producing a new RIPE Document (see Draft Documentation Tab), this policy proposal would result in changes to three existing RIPE Documents:

3.0 Assignments for Internet Experiments

Organisations often require deployment tests for new Internet services and technologies. These require numbering resources for the duration of the test.

The policy goal of resource conservation is of reduced importance when resources are issued on a temporary basis.

3.1 Defining the Experiment

The experiment for which the organisation receives numbering resources must be documented. This may be in the form of a current IETF Experimental RFC (see RFC 2026 Link: ftp://ftp.ripe.net/rfc/rfc2026.txt , Section 4.2.1 or an “experiment proposal” detailing the resources required and the activities to be carried out. A single AS Number will be assigned. If more than one AS Number is required for the experiment, this should be indicated and explained in the request.

The experiment proposal must be made public (e.g. published on a website), upon registration of the resources by the RIPE NCC. When the experiment is concluded the results must be published free of charge and free from disclosure constraints.

3.2 Non-commercial Basis

Resources issued for an experiment must not be used for commercial purposes.

3.3 Period of the Resource Registration

The resources will be issued on a temporary basis for a period of one year. Renewal of the resources' registration is possible on receipt of a new request that details any continuation of the experiment during the extended period.

The resources issued cannot be used for a commercial service following the conclusion of the experiment. At the end of the assignment period the AS Number must be returned to the RIPE NCC.

8.0 Assignments for Internetworking Experiments

Organisations often require deployment tests for new Internet services and technologies. These require numbering resources for the duration of the test. The policy goal of resource conservation is of reduced importance when resources are issued on a temporary basis.

An organisation receiving numbering resources must document the experiment. This may be in the form of a current IETF Experimental RFC (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt Link: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt Sec. 4.2.1) or an "experiment proposal" detailing the resources required and the activities to be carried out.

The assignment size will be equal to the existing minimum allocation size on the date the request is received. Where the experiment requires a variation to this rule it should be noted in the resource request.

The experiment proposal must be made public (e.g. published on website), upon registration of the resources by the RIPE NCC. Following the conclusion of the experiment the results must be published free of charge and free from disclosure constraints.

Resources issued must not be used for commercial purposes during or following the conclusion of the experiment.

The resources will be issued on a temporary basis for a period of one year. Renewal of the resource's registration is possible on receipt of a new request that details continuation of the experiment during the extended period.

The RIPE NCC will register the resources issued in the RIPE Database.

The request must be made by an LIR using the appropriate request form. Details of the experiment should be noted in the form found online Link: /publications/docs/ripe-documents/request-forms-supporting-notes/ . Link: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/internet-registries.html#request

6.0 Assignments for Internet Experiments

Organisations often require deployment tests for new Internet services and technologies. These require numbering resources for the duration of the test. The policy goal of resource conservation is of reduced importance when resources are issued on a temporary basis.

6.1 Defining the experiment

An organisation receiving numbering resources must document the experiment. This may be in the form of a current IETF Experimental RFC ([2026] see Sec. 4.2.1 Link: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt ) or an "experiment proposal" detailing the resources required and the activities to be carried out.

6.2 Publication

The experiment proposal must be made public (e.g. published on web site), upon registration of the resources by the RIPE NCC. Following the conclusion of the experiment the results must be published free of charge and free from disclosure constraints.

6.3 Non-commercial basis

Resources issued for an experiment must not be used for commercial purposes.

6.4 Period of the Temporary Resource Registration

The resources will be issued on a temporary basis for a period of one year. Renewal of the resource's registration is possible on receipt of a new request that details any continuation of the experiment during the extended period.

The resources issued cannot be used for a commercial service following the conclusion of the experiment.

6.5 Registration

The RIPE NCC will register the resources issued in the RIPE Whois Database.

6.6 Making the request

The request must be made by a Local Internet Registry (LIR) using the appropriate request form for the resource found online Link: /publications/docs/ripe-documents/request-forms-supporting-notes/ .

Temporary Internet Number Assignment Policies

Abstract

This document outlines policies for temporary direct assignments of IPv4/IPv6 address space and Autonomous System (AS) Numbers in the RIPE NCC service region.

Contents

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Internet Registry Number Resource Pool Reservation
2.1 RIPE NCC Assignment Procedures
3.0 End User Term and Limitations
3.1 Assignment Time Limits
3.2 Realistic Expectations
3.3 IPv4 Address Utilisation Rate
3.4 Compliance with Other RIPE NCC Assignment Policies

1.0 Introduction

This policy allows the RIPE NCC to assign number resources for temporary direct assignment purposes and, for this purpose, to reserve pools of IPv4/IPv6 addresses, AS Numbers and any other numbers for which it acts as Regional Internet Registry (RIR).

2.0 Internet Registry Number Resource Pool Reservation

The RIPE NCC is authorised to reserve pools of IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, 16-bit AS Numbers and 32-bit AS Numbers for the purpose of direct assignment under this policy.

2.1 RIPE NCC Assignment Procedures

The RIPE NCC may assign number resources to End Users on a temporary deployment basis for a specific time-limited purpose. Examples of specific purposes include, but are not limited to, academic research and experimental purposes, conferences and other types of events which require network connectivity for short periods of time, and other strictly time-limited projects such as deployment tests for new Internet services and technologies.

Resources issued for temporary assignments must not be used for purposes other than those specified in the application, and they may be returned to the RIPE NCC at any time during the approved assignment period. The number resources will be automatically de-registered and returned to the appropriate reservation pool at the end of the approved assignment period.

The RIPE NCC will register the issued number resources in the RIPE Database for the duration of the assignment and will note the start and end dates of the assignment period for each database object.

3.0 End User Terms and Limitations

3.1 Assignment Time Limits

Depending on the specified purpose of the assignment request, different upper time limits may apply. For conferences and other events of short, fixed duration, the maximum assignment time period will be seven calendar days more than the scheduled length of the conference/event but no longer than one month in any case.

For longer term projects and research purposes, the number resources may be issued on a temporary basis for a period of up to six calendar months, or two calendar weeks longer than the expected life of the project/research/experiment, whichever is shorter.

In the case where an End User requires number resources for research purposes, and where the research project details are made public upon registration of the number resources by the RIPE NCC, and where the End User commits to making public the results of their research project free of charge and free from disclosure constraints, then the requested number resources may be issued for a period of up to one calendar year.

At the RIPE NCC’s discretion renewal of the registration of the resources may be possible in exceptional circumstances on receipt of a new request that details continuation of the End User's requirements during the extended period. Should this request be denied by the RIPE NCC, an appeal may be made using the RIPE NCC Conflict Arbitration Procedure.

3.2 Realistic Expectations

Assignments may only be based on realistic expectations recorded on the request form. The RIPE NCC may require the End User to provide documentation or other evidence supporting the End User's assignment request.

3.3 IPv4 Address Utilisation Rates

For short-lived assignments of less than one month, the immediate IPv4 address utilisation rate should be no less than 50% of the total temporary assignment. For all other temporary assignments, immediate IPv4 address utilisation should be no less than 25%, and utilisation after one month should be no less than 50%.

3.4 Compliance with Other RIPE NCC Assignment Policies

In all respects not covered by this document, temporary assignment policies are subject to all other RIPE NCC policies regarding standard direct assignment of number resources.

The RIPE NCC currently has the ability to assign IP addresses on a temporary basis for experimental purposes. This policy proposal creates a long-term basis for opening up temporary number resource assignments to a wider variety of End Users.

Furthermore, it is expected that little or no resources will be available for this purpose in the RIR IPv4 address space or 16-bit AS Number pools unless a reservation is made.

Most number resource assignments are made on the basis of indefinite duration, which means that unless the address space is returned to the RIPE NCC, they can only provide value to one End User body or organisation. However, temporary resource assignments can be made repeatedly to any number of different End Users, ensuring that such a pool would provide permanent value to the RIPE community.

a. Arguments supporting the proposal

Temporary resource assignments provide a useful facility for End Users who require a specific amount of address space and/or AS Number on a strictly time-limited basis. As the number resource can be re-used again and again, the amount of address space or number of AS Numbers that would need to be set aside for temporary assignment pools would be small when measured against the current number resource run-rates. On this basis, creating an address pool for this purpose would have a negligible effect on the final RIPE NCC IANA-supplied IPv4 address pool depletion date and the 16-bit AS Number depletion date.

b. Arguments opposing the proposal

It could be argued that if there were resources consistently available in a temporary assignment pool, that these unassigned resources could be better used by assigning or allocating them to an End User or LIR on an indefinite basis, and that by not assigning them, LIRs and other End Users would be disadvantaged or discriminated against.

If a temporary assignment was used at any time for malicious ends, the resources used for this purpose could end up on blacklists and the value of the resources would be significantly diminished for future End Users.

Note: In order to provide additional information related to the proposal, details of an impact analysis carried out by the RIPE NCC are documented below. The projections presented in this analysis are based on existing data and should be viewed only as an indication of the possible impact that the policy might have if the proposal is accepted and implemented.

A. RIPE NCC's Understanding of the Proposed Policy

The proposal's text is sufficiently broad so that any type of use is likely to be approved, provided the use is time-limited and the request complies with all other relevant policies and procedures. Specifically, renumbering and/or network restructuring projects appear to fall under this policy. Consequently, this adds the risk of depleting the temporary pool with a single request, regardless of the size of the reserved pool, as these projects sometimes require very large assignments.

Current Registration Services practice for time-limited assignments is to be quite liberal in case an extension to the originally requested period is asked for. This is something that happens at least once for most of the temporary assignments that we make, except those that are requested for one-time events. The RIPE NCC reads the text in this proposal ("… renewal of the registration of the resources may be possible in exceptional circumstances …") to mean that requests for extensions should be evaluated much more conservatively.

B. Impact of Policy on Registry and Addressing System

Address/Internet Number Resource Consumption:

After analysing the data that is currently available, the RIPE NCC does not anticipate that any significant impact will be caused if this proposal is implemented.

The proposed policy requires the RIPE NCC to reserve blocks of Internet resources to make temporary assignments from. For each resource, the RIPE NCC makes the following reservation recommendations:

IPv4: A /13 should suffice.

16-bit ASNs: A block of 16 ASNs should suffice.

32-bit ASNs and IPv6: There is no need for reservation.

C. Impact of Policy on RIPE NCC Operations/Services

The proposed policy states that the temporary assignment policies are subject to all other RIPE NCC policies regarding standard direct assignment of number resources. Accordingly, requesters will be able to receive temporary assignments after signing a contract with the RIPE NCC or with a sponsoring LIR as described in the current document "Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region Link: /publications/docs/ripe-452/ ". To enable this, a new contract template will need to be formulated.

The proposed policy also states that renewal of resources will be possible at the RIPE NCC's discretion, but it will be subject to the RIPE NCC Conflict Arbitration Procedure. If the proposal were to be accepted, the RIPE NCC Conflict Arbitration Procedure will need to be updated to cover these cases.

D. Legal Impact of Policy

Considering the extreme case of one big IPv4 request being made and approved for a /13 (the recommended reserved block), the other potential requesters may be left with no space available for their temporary assignment needs. In case of commercial experiments, this may appear to be a commercial advantage for the granted requester organisation.