Short RIPE NCC Report for June

As has been reported earlier this year, the RIPE NCC is currently
severely under-resourced.  As a consequence, it has been impossible for
us to report to you formally and in full about the activities of the
RIPE NCC as we have done in the past.  While we very much regret the
situation we hope to keep you informed with a series of short informal
reports.  The report below summarises our activities up to July 1995. 


Summary

The registration services still operate at capacity.  We are hiring new
personnel to cope with this.  We have started the training courses for
new local Internet registries.  A new tool for speeding up reverse
domain delegations is now in use.  Database improvements are being
implemented.  We are implementing a request tracking system.  Work on
next year's charging scheme is behind schedule and progressing slowly. 


Registration Services (hostmaster)

The backlog in registration services has been more or less constant at
around 125 messages which equals about 70 requests.  We have hired 2.6
FTE of junior hostmasters to help cope with this problem.  The current
expectation is that this backlog will be cleared during September. 


Training

We have taught the first Local Internet Registry course in Amsterdam. 
It has been well received.  We are currently revising the course
according to the excellent feedback received.  More courses are
scheduled in Germany (full), Austria, the UK, Italy, and at the NCC in
Amsterdam.  The dates will be announced as soon as they are fixed. 

If you would like to host such a course and a minimum of six
contributing Local IRs are likely to attend, please contact
training at ripe.net to see whether we can accomodate you.  All courses
will be announced on the local-ir mailing list and are open to all
contributing registries on a first come first served basis.  If there is
high demand for a particular course we will have to restrict the number
of persons from each registry. 


Reverse Domain Delegations

There is a new mail responder tool at <auto-inaddr at ripe.net> which
automatically checks delegation requests for reverse domains, e.g. 
subdomains of 193.in-addr.arpa and 194.in-addr.arpa.  Requests are only
forwarded to registration services staff after they have passed all
checks.  This reduces turnaround times and relieves the registration
services staff at the same time. 


Database

We are working on database software enhancements in the areas of
hierarchical authorisation and logging/exchange.  The former will be a
means to authorise creation of objects below a node in a hierarchical
key space (domain names, addresses).  The main application is to prevent
erroneous registration of address space assignments.  The improvements
in logging will make it possible to run real time secondary
copies of databases.


Staffing

Els Willems has started as new junior hostmaster on July 3rd.  She joins
us from the Dutch foundation for computer algebra.  Els will work part
time 4days/week initially reducing to 3days/week later in the year. 

Unfortunately (for us) Anne Lord will leave us on July 14th and move
back to her home country for new challenges at a major service provider.
We at the NCC will miss her and her contribution to our success.  We
hope that Anne can join us at the next RIPE meeting for a 'formal'
farewell from the RIPE community. 

We will advertise to fill Anne's position shortly.

In the meantime our UK contingent will be replenished by Nick Reid who
has been hired as a full time junior hostmaster.  Nick will start August
28th. 

As reported in Rome we have also hired Hatice Kuey from Turkey as a
junior hostmaster.  The expectation was that she would join us in June. 
Unfortunately and unknown to us at the time, Dutch employment laws have
changed in April, making it much harder to employ people from outside
the EC.  We are currently working with the Dutch employment authorities
to resolve this.  Given the increasing amount of new registries in the
Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East we think it is very important
to have this area 'represented' in our staff. 


Plans for this month

Registration services urgently need the improvement of our ticketing
system into a real request tracking system.  Currently the needed
functionality is being specified and we hope to start implementation
this month with a gradual phase-in of new functionality. 

We plan to issue a basic proposal for next years charging model.  Due to
the staff shortage and pressure on registration services not much work
has been done to date.  The proposal is thus expected to be simple and
basic. 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards

Daniel Karrenberg 
RIPE NCC Manager