[address-policy-wg] 2006-05 New Policy Proposal (PI Assignment Size)

> Which is unfortunate. Because if scaling of the global routing
> table is really as big of an issue as some people claim,

It's just an issue which crops up again and again, and costs money to
solve each time.  I've got a bunch of dual stacked sup720 pfc3b's.
These no longer take a full v4 routing table in their default
configuration, and shortly, I expect them not to be able to take a full
v4 routing table using any soft configuration, except by filtering out
routes.

Yes, I can upgrade them.  But it's an issue.  It means downtime and lots
of €€€.

> then
> the above scenario defines a BEST PRACTICE for multihoming
> without global impact.

Let's be fair here - it's half-baked multihoming.  If your connection to
your LIR network goes down, you're going to be left with patchy
connectivity at best.  Half baked != best practice.

> But, as I said in my last message, without a globally
> agreed definition of the problem and a globally agreed
> way forward to solving it, any action that RIPE takes to
> limit growth of the global routing table is just penalizing
> European businesses for no net benefit.

But, but, but, but.... in this proposal, RIPE is not taking action to
limit the growth of the global routing table.  Under the terms of
2006-05, the intent is to make RIPE PI assignments more useful in the
Internet, which makes PI a more attractive option, which helps European
businesses.

> PI assignments are a good thing because they help get
> organizations online. When an organization needs this kind
> of address range, RIPE should be ready to give it to them.
> In the end, all assignments and allocations are subject to
> technical justifications based on RFC 2050.

Exactly - this is what this proposal is about.

Separate to this proposal are the following items of note:

     1. 2006-05 affects address assignment policy, and address
        assignment policy indirectly affects routing table growth,
     2. we have no garbage collection mechanism for stale PI
        assignments,
     3. readily available PI is good for business,
     4. lots of people believe - with good reason - that readily
        available PI is bad news from a network scalability point of
        view, and therefore:
     5. one of the reasons that people might be unhappy about this
        proposal is because it may increase the amount of PI space
        assigned by RIPE.

Nick