[db-wg] Using the RIPE Database for IPAM

Colleagues

Do you use the RIPE Database as your IPAM solution? If so, read on....

The RIPE NCC has done a brief review of the recommendations made by
the DB Task Force (DBTF). You can find it here:
https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/tf/rdb-requirements-tf/initial-analysis-implementation-ripe-dbtf-recommendations.pdf

There is one point in the summary that I disagree with:

One recommendation can be implemented immediately by the RIPE NCC:
- 3. Using the RIPE Database as an IPAM solution

The recommendation from the DBTF was:
"The task force recommends limiting and discouraging the use of the
RIPE Database as an
enterprise IPAM solution."

This has not yet been discussed by the community and there is no
consensus on this recommendation. So the RIPE NCC should not be doing
anything to implement this recommendation.

There are a number of points relating to this.

The first BoF held by the DBTF had 46 participants. They had some
polls about IPAM:

    Where do you hold your canonical IP address assignment details? (13 answers)

    Internal database or IPAM system (5 - 38%)
    RIPE Database (5 - 38%)
    Internal database for detailed assignments and RIPE database for
allocations (3 - 23%)

    What should we do about the IPAM use of the RIPE Database? (12 answers)

    We should discourage it (3-25%)
    We should tolerate it but provide restrictions and best practices (5-42%)
    We should promote it and facilitate it (4-33%)

During the BoF some comments were also made on this:
Shane's comment "IPAM seems to be an important thing"
Nathalie said about 50% of people attending training courses over a
number of years said they use the RIPE DB for IPAM.
Also trainees said open source IPAM solutions often pull data out of
the RIPE DB but have no functionality to push data to the RIPE DB.

During the presentation by the DBTF in the DB-WG session at RIPE 83
Shane said (on IPAM):

"if you had very light requirements for IPAM then maybe it is OK,  but
it's not really what it's for"
"unable to find out if this [response] was based on misunderstanding
of the question"
"we think there are probably good ways to go forward with that, for
example making hooks so that external IPAM solutions can hook into
it...that makes sense, there are certainly many commercial vendors
that make IPAM products who would be happy to use hooks, there are
many ways that third parties could use this but probably not a
requirement"

So it looks like there are very mixed views on the use of the RIPE
Database for IPAM. Some people also expressed surprise that so many
people use the database for IPAM. It is clear that we don't actually
understand who, how and why people use the database for IPAM. We need
a better understanding of the how and why and the number of users
doing this before we can make any decision about discouraging or
encouraging this use of the database. Even to consider if IPAM should
be defined as a purpose of the database.

As we are talking about it, maybe now is the time to start this
discussion. If you use the RIPE Database as your IPAM solution maybe
you can offer some more details.

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG