[db-wg] DOMAIN attributes review

[Apologies for duplicate emails.]

Dear Colleagues,

At the RIPE 62 Meeting we were asked to consider the attributes in
DOMAIN objects.

With the removal of any hierarchy in reverse delegations and the removal
of forward domain data there is no longer any use case for the
"mnt-lower:" attribute.

Other attributes that are considered to be used only for forward domains
are:
- "refer:"
- "sub-dom:"
- "dom-net:"

The statistics listed below show how many of the above attributes have
been added to reverse delegations and ENUMs.

The RIPE NCC would like to ask the community if anyone sees any
justification for the use of these attributes in reverse delegations or
ENUMs.

If there is no justification, all four of these attributes can be
removed from all DOMAIN objects when the last two TLD operators move
their data out of the RIPE Database. This is anticipated to occur by the
end of 2011.

To keep any discussion focussed please send any comments or feedback to
the DNS Working Group Mailing list.

Regards
Denis Walker
Business Analyst
RIPE NCC Database Group

Statistics
----------

Number of each attribute used in reverse delegations or ENUMs and the
number of unique maintainers who manage these objects.

"refer:"     = 6     unique maintainers = 1
"sub-dom:"   = 271   unique maintainers = 23
"dom-net:"   = 2219  unique maintainers = 140
"mnt-lower:" = 46485 unique maintainers = 4208