Harmonization of Regional Internet Registry Resource Allocation Policies

1
Harmonization ofRegional Internet
RegistryResource Allocation Policies

• September, 2003
• Bill Woodcock
• Packet Clearing House

2
Five Regional Registries

• RIPE Europe
• ARIN North America
• APNIC Asia-Pacific
• LACNIC Latin America Caribbean
• AfriNIC Africa Indian Ocean

3
Registry Responsibilities

• IP Address allocation and management
• ASN allocation and management
• in-addr DNS delegation
• Registration database maintenance
• whois service
• Training and outreach

4
Forces for Divergence

• Each region has a distinct constituency.
• Each constituency has unique requirements.
• Each RIR must be free to develop policy different
  from that of the others.

5
Forces for Convergence

• Some practices differ in scale, but not in
  mechanism.
• Some services differ in price, but not in effect.
• LACNIC has had success with adopting the full
  suite of ARIN policies as a starting-point.
• Each RIR should be able to learn from the
  experiences of the others.

6
Harmonization

• Areas of interest
• IP Address allocation
• ASN allocation
• Policy Comparison Document 2.0
• The Internet community is the ultimate authority,
  so all policies must originate from the
  community, not the RIR staff.

7
Major Policy Differences

• National Internet Registries
• APNIC has NIRs in Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan,
  Indonesia, and Vietnam.
• LACNIC has NIRs in Brazil and Mexico.
• RIPE and ARIN do not have NIR policies.

8
Major Policy Differences

• Direct assignments
• APNIC and RIPE perform direct assignments of any
  size, while LACNIC requires recipients to justify
  a /21, and ARIN requires recipients to justify a
  /20.

9
Major Policy Differences

• Critical Infrastructure
• RIPE has no separate policy for critical
  infrastructure. ARIN and LACNIC include IXes in
  critical infrastructure. APNIC has separate
  policies for IXes and critical infrastructure.

10
Major Policy Differences

• Internet Exchanges
• RIPE has no specific policy for IXes. ARIN
  requires two initial participants, and APNIC
  requires three. LACNICs policy is less specific.

11
Major Policy Differences

• LIR Assignment window
• RIPE, APNIC, and LACNIC limit the size of block
  which allocation recipients can assign without
  prior approval from the RIR. ARIN does not.

12
Major Policy Differences

• IPv6 Critical Infrastructure
• LACNIC and ARIN have a minimum assignment of
  /48, while APNICs minimum is /32, and RIPE does
  not distinguish critical infrastructure from
  normal assignments. As with IPv4, APNIC has
  separate IX policy.

13
Major Policy Differences

• ASN allocations
• APNIC allocates blocks of ASNs to their NIRs,
  while ARIN, LACNIC, and RIPE perform direct
  assignment only.

14
Major Policy Differences

• ASN assignments
• APNIC has portable and non-portable ASNs. RIPE
  doesnt require a continuing relationship with
  ASN recipients. ARIN and LACNIC have both
  mandatory one-time fees and recurring fees.

15

• Bill Woodcock
• woody_at_pch.net
• http//www.apnic.net/docs/policy/rir-comparison.ht
  ml
• http//www.pch.net/resources/

Produced with the generous support of the ICANN
Training and Outreach Programme