Skip to main content

RIPE NCC Services Working Group Minutes RIPE 89

Wednesday, 30 October 2024 14:00 (UTC+1)

Chairs: Rob Evans, Bijal Sanghani, János Zsakó
Scribe: Antony Gollan
Status: Draft

The recordings of the session are available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/ncc-services-wg/

The stenography transcripts are available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/steno/35/

1. Welcome, Admin

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1483/

Rob Evans, RIPE NCC Services WG Co-Chair, welcomed attendees to the session and ran through the agenda. The minutes from RIPE 88 were approved. There were no changes to the agenda.

2. Announcement of Co-Chair Selection Process

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1484/

Rob said that as Bijal’s term as co-chair was ending, they had put out a call on the mailing list four weeks before the meeting and Stephan Wahl had volunteered. There had been no objections on the list, and there were none in the room, so Rob announced that Stephan would be taking over as their new WG co-chair.

Rob thanked Bijal, who could not be at the meeting, for her help in chairing the WG, which she had done since RIPE 48, and for encouraging him to step up when they needed an extra chair.

3. Planning for the Registry 2025

Hans Petter Holen, RIPE NCC CEO

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1485/

Hans Petter Holen gave an update on the RIPE NCC’s Registry division’s plans for 2025. For the Registration Services department, they planned to increase automation, centralise their records in one authoritative system, and conduct an external review of their procedures for resource holder changes. For member services, they planned to improve their billing process, carry out verification checks on members, improve their online chat service and conduct a review of their procedures. For Registry Monitoring, they planned to increase the number of ARCs and improve their sanctions screening to streamline legitimate requests. Hans Petter also shared information about the workload of the Registry division and shared some statistics on the number of fraud cases reported to the police.

There were no questions.

4. Planning for Information Services 2025

Felipe Victolla Silveira, Chief Technology Officer, RIPE NCC

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1486/

Felipe Victolla Silveira gave an update on plans for the Information Services division in 2025. Among other things, this included improved security, automation and usability for the LIR Portal, and implementing data warehousing, improved security and resilience of the RIPE Database. They would also look at integrating RIPE Atlas measurements with the LIR Portal and catering for specific use cases with APIs and UI components. For DNS and K-root they would continue outreach activities to increase the number of hosted K-root nodes and AuthDNS instances and complete sunsetting the ns.ripe.net service. They would also be working on ISAE 3000 Type 2 audit compliance and ISO 27001 certification, and continuing efforts to reduce their data centre footprint, aiming to go from 46 to 22 racks by the end of 2024, and to 10 racks by the end of 2025.

Gert Döring, Spacenet, said improving security was worthwhile but it was not a target in itself. Achieving maximum security would mean turning off all machines so nothing could get done anymore. There was a balance between making things more secure and a point where they became a pain for the people who had to use these systems. He wanted to state for the record that he was not happy with some of the recent changes in this respect.

Felipe said they had taken people’s feedback into account. One issue they had discussed was shared credentials – where an employee left an organisation but still had API keys. They understood this was an annoyance, but it was a trade-off and they had to make a decision. He reiterated that they were listening to all feedback.

Yury Bogdanov, IP4MaRKET (online), asked how much the RIPE NCC paid per rack in its data centre.

Felipe said if he did a rough mental calculation on the spot it was around 16-20 kEUR per year.

There were no further questions.

5. Planning for External Engagement and Community 2025

Hisham Ibrahim, Chief Community Officer, RIPE NCC

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1487/

Hisham Ibrahim gave the update for External Engagement and Community. He said they were not asking for any extra budget beyond a small amount for market corrections and were primarily focusing on existing projects and on developing and refining processes that added more value to members. For Community Building and Membership Engagement this meant continuing to support community initiatives like NOGs and hackathons, and delivering RIPE and regional meetings, and enhanced website functionality and expanded language support. Learning and Development planned to develop new learning experiences and develop their existing ones, and to deliver more in-person training courses. On the Coordination and Collaboration side, they planned to implement more automation into their research activity and share these insights externally. Key events planned were RIPE NCC Roundtable Meetings in Brussels, South East Europe, Middle East and also participation in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20.

Nigel Hicks, UK Government, said he had two comments to make. First, it was incredibly timely that they were engaging with governments to explain what they were all doing. The second part was their engagement in the wider fora, such as the global digital compact and the WSIS+20 review – he appreciated their work and also their earlier roundtable meeting in Brussels, which he had attended.

There were no further questions.

6. Planning for Organisational Stability 2025

Hans Petter Holen, Managing Director, RIPE NCC

Presentation slides and recording available at:
https://ripe89.ripe.net/archives/video/1488/

Hans Petter presented the RIPE NCC’s Organisational Stability division’s plans for 2025. On the facilities side, major renovations would be made to their building (by their landlord) in early 2025 and their current rental contract expired in 2026 – they would need to decide to renew in early 2025. The Human Resource Department would be instituting a low-barrier programme for mental health support for staff, in-line with Dutch labour legislation. They would also develop talent and succession planning and work to increase gender diversity in the organisation. Legal planned to continue work on the revision of ICP-2 (“Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries”). They also planned to review the RIPE NCC’s Articles of Association and improve the General Meeting voting procedure. There was a lot of new EU legislation they would be reviewing, and they planned to continue focusing on ensuring sanctions compliance. For Finance, they planned to support the Charging Scheme Task Force, secure income from “Ultra High Risk Countries”, and improve their internal reporting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system where possible. For Information Security, Risk and Compliance, they planned to obtain the ISAE 3000/SOC 2 Type 2 assurance report for RPKI, achieve ISO 27001 compliance, implement 24/7 threat detection monitoring for their infrastructure, improve identity governance and administration, and deploy a Governance Risk and Compliance platform.

There were no questions.

End of session.