Criteria for initial PA Allocation

> At the last RIPE meeting (RIPE 39) in Bologna, the issue of criteria
> for PA Allocations was discussed in the LIR-WG. The presentation
> delivered is available from:
> http://www.ripe.net/meetings/archive/ripe-39/presentations/

A couple of comments to the slide "reasons for portable address size (#7):

- we want our own routable block

yes, sure. What is the entity who can guarantee this. The RIR's?
For reasons such us technical limitations and the overall wellbeeing
of the existing community doing full routing, there has to be some
limitations, best practises and guidelines. If an applicant is granted
an address space using this argument as a reason, who wants to carry (s)he's
routes anyway? So you want your own block, but I do not want to route it,
we have a problem or not?

- we want to use BGP and be multi-homed

Good. There exists several methods you could run a working network also with
this approach, even when you get address space from your upstream providers.
Alternatives include NAT, private-ASN and address space from upstream, 
unique-ASN and private addr. space, unique-ASN and address space from 
upstream. You can also make use of the "do-not-export" and 
"do-not-advertise" attributes to make things work.
One problem still remains with this; if you want to peer with multiple
providers at some public IX. Then it is unlikely that you can play around
with these options. I do suppose that majority of IX peers are LIR's anyhow
and this maybe isn't a real problem afterall.

- we need to be independed

In Internet community at large we are all depended from each other. If you
do not like your current providers, make a change or became one of yourself.
I really do not think that beeing independed at Internet has anything to do
with numbers (numbers are just a technical way of doing things, like E.164
telephony numbers).

- our upstream adviced use to become a LIR

Well, if you are acting like a LIR (= assigning address space further to 
your partners/customers etc), then maybe you should. There is some extra
work in sight that has to be taken into account when making this decision. 
But if you don't feel like a LIR, or do not want to run LIR procedures, 
then you should not be forced to be one.

> With an increased demand for independence and multi-homing, the RIPE
> NCC can see the consequences of this in the impressive membership
> growth in the last years:
--clip--
> The RIPE NCC has experienced several cases where organisations have
> insisted on becoming members in order to receive a portable /20
> address block despite the fact they clearly state that their need is
> for less, in some cases only for c:a 300 addresses. We also observe
> organisations who become LIRs with the pure objective of obtaining
> portable address space but who are unaware of the responsibilities and
> workload membership comprises.

Are all members counted as LIR's?
My opinion is that members assigning address space further down
to other organisations should be counted as LIR's. Others are just
members. LIR's then get initial allocations, others do not.
If a member claims to be a LIR, but haven't made further assignments
within a reasonable time, the member status could be revised.
Problem is then what happens to the address space the member holds?
Maybe a renumbering is needed (something that all PA address space
holders have agreed anyhow, if necessary).

> As all assignments made are based on need, there is clearly a policy
> inconsistency in the fact that allocations currently do not require
> any such justification.

If allocations are only granted to LIR's then I see no problem with this.
If allocations are granted to everybody we clearly have a non-scalable
situation here.

> Extending the logic of basing address assignments on need and previous
> utilisation to allocations, I therefore put forward the following
> proposal:
>
> Proposed Initial PA Allocation Criteria:
>
> - Demonstrated efficient utilisation of a /xx (/22?)
> Or
> - Immediate need for a /xx (/22?)
>
> - Agree to renumber (Required? Recommended?)
>

Hhmm. What if we just open up the restrictions having assignments from more
than one upstream (LIR). If multihomed (with unique-ASN or private-ASN),
the user could hold similar assignments from each upstream provider.
This means that the organisation is required to fullfill address 
requirements only once. The scaling of this is also questionable, but it
makes possible to have larger aggregations. This seems to be the point here
anyhow, to reduce the growth of the routing table.

> The matter clearly also touches on the matter of PI Assignments, which
> is something I would like to encourage further discussion on. However,
> I would like start by requesting the communities input on the matter
> of initial PA Allocation criteria.

PI assignments should be limited exactly to the amount what is needed.
If the amount needed is not large enough to be routable the applicant should
re-think it's strategy. In my opinion RIR's have no responsibilities towards
the community what is the minimum routable aggregation size.

Jorma
----------------------------------
jorma.mellin at teliafi.net
Development Manager ; CCIE#4185
Telia Finland Inc, Carrier&Networks