[address-policy-wg] 200 customer requirements for IPv6

At 18:10 17/11/2005, Jeroen Massar wrote:

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>Tim Streater wrote:
>> At 17:00 17/11/2005, Jeroen Massar wrote:
>>> Tim Streater wrote:
>>>
>>>> It should go. We manage a transit network connecting Middle-eastern
>>>> and North African national research networks (NRENs).
>>>> The aim is that this grouping go independent of us at some point
>>>> and manage everything themselves.
>>> So in say 10 years you are not managing it anymore? Most NREN's already
>>> have plenty of address space, so why not use that address space?
>> 
>> We are an LIR and we already have a /32 for the European NREN transit
>> network that we also manage (GEANT).
>> You don't use customer address space to address your transit network.
>
>Hold on here. *You* are the LIR, have already a /32 and are already
>using it for management, but won't use it yourself? Or do you mean that
>you want multiple /32's because you have multiple projects which should
>actually be separate? If I understand correctly you see your own network
>GEANT, for which you have the /32 already, as a customer and you expect
>it to go away?
>
>Can you elaborate on this (again, as I recall that this came up before)
>maybe this time in ASCII or Visio style? That might better illustrate
>what exact problem you are having and what then the solutions might be.
>It seems to be a really strange construct, at least doesn't seem to make
>any sense to me. Could very well be me of course.

We have two network that we manage. GEANT, for which we have a /32 for the backbone and which we expect to continue for a long time. The customers on this are the European NRENs, they are all LIRs themselves, so we don't get space from them and they don't get space from us - this is a transit network. Note: we were set up by our customers and are owned by our customers - we have, therefore, a small number of large customers and this base is not expected to expand (unless the EU invades the rest of the world).

The other network is one we are *currently* managing, EUMEDCONNECT. It is for the Middle-eastern and North African NRENs. The intention here is that we expect these NRENs to set up their own entity to manage it, and go their own way, in which case we gift them the infrastructure, which in this case has to include the address space. We can do that for v4 as I got PI space for that. Its v6 that is the problem.

>> We don't need a /32 obviously. Can we get a /48? And can we get it routed?
>
>One can get anything routed. Use ULA to generate your own random prefix
>and use it. I am quite sure that it will reach quite far. You only want
>to use it for management (and transit?) for your own network anyway and
>the ones who participate in your organisations can surely be persuaded
>to receive the route.

This may well suffice. Personally I feel this paranoia about the size of the v6 routing table is misplaced. You got lots of bits, you get lots of routing entries. But that's another story.

>> So you're saying we should lie to RIPE when necessary?
>
>Why is that a lie? Unless you actually are a homeuser (which you are
>not) or some very small ISP who doesn't want customers (which isn't the
>case either). I really can't see why you can't get address space under
>the current policy. For that matter: did you ever try? Or even simpler,
>did you ask RIPE NCC? Instead of just saying "we can't, change the policy"

Well, it asked for the plan to allocate space to 200 customers or some such (it's a while since I looked at it). We have no such plan and there won't be one. Telling RIPE that I got one is therefore not true. The policy should be expanded to cover the reasonable cases. 

-- Tim