Next week is the ARIN 36 meeting in Montreal.   Here is my look ahead at the some of the policies being discussed at the meetings.  There are two recommended drafts that will be discussed along with nine other draft policies.  If you aren’t going to be there in person check out the remote participation options.

2015-1 IPv6 Initial End-User Assignments (Recommended Draft)

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy allows organizations which have 13 different sites to qualify for an /40 IPv6 block.

Discussion: This policy is intended to aid the widespread adoption and stabilization of IPv6 by allowing small organizations to obtain a permanent block of IPv6 addresses rather than having to obtain a block from their upstream provider. There has been little opposition to this policy change and I expect it to move forward to Last-Call.

2015-4 Modify 8.2 section to better reflect how ARIN handles reorganizations (Recommended Draft)

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy clarifies existing staff practice regarding reorganizations.  It explicitly notes that a needs-test is not required for reorganizations.

Discussion: This policy was created by the AC after a Policy Experience Report noted that the current policy is causing some confusion by the membership.  The AC originally consider this as a possible editorial change, but decided that it was best to put this policy through the entire policy process.  There has been no opposition to this codification of existing practice.  I expect this policy to move forward to Last-Call.

2014-14 Remove Needs Test on Small Transfers

2014-14 Policy Summary: This draft policy removes needs testing from blocks which are smaller than /20 and permits an organization to have one needs-free transfer per year as long as a corporate officer attests to the organizations need of the addresses.

Discussion: This policy was rewritten extensively, largely by myself, with input from members of the AC.  When the policy was returned to the list the new text seems to have fallen flat without much discussion.  In my mind this means I have crafted text that now appeals to very few because it makes great compromises between the two sides of the argument for and against needs testing in the transfer market, or people don’t think this type of policy will solve the problems that exist in the current transfer market.  I suspect this policy will likely be abandoned by the AC following the meeting.  Hopefully, at least we have a robust discussion about what types of policy changes are needed as ARIN moves to mostly processing transfers rather than issuing addresses from the IPv4 free pool.

2015-2 Inter-RIR Transfers to Specified Recipients

Policy Summary: This policy allows an organization which receives a transfer in the ARIN region to transfer it to another RIR within 24 months of receiving the transfer.

Discussion: The policy is intended to benefit large organizations which receive a block via transfer in the ARIN region and then want to transfer it to a subsidiary or other entity in another region.  (There is however no restriction in the existing text that it be a subsidiary.)   Some have not supported this policy as it is a “workaround” for broken geolocation issues.  Furthermore some have opposed this as they see potential for increased address market speculation.

2015-3 Remove 30 day utilization requirement in end-user IPv4 policy

Policy Summary: This draft policy remove the 30 day usages requirement for IPv4 end-users.

Discussion: This policy is intended to remove what has been considered an onerous requirement on end-users.  Under current policy an end-users is supposed to put 25% of their block into use with 30 days, based upon a 1 year allocation. This requirement has always been very hard for organizations to meet and has skewed the allocation sizes downward.  With end-users now forced to obtain assignments via the transfer market, this policy provision is much less relevant.

2015-5 Out of region use

2015-6 Transfers and Multi-national Networks

Policy Summary: This two policy drafts are followups to the previous policy 2014-1 Out of Region use.

Discussion: 2015-5 is a rewrite of the original 2014-1 policy but with the an expanded definition of nexus to determine if an organization should be allowed to obtain address blocks from ARIN.  2015-6 is a different look at the same problem and approach it by looking only at the transfer market.  In 2015-6, the policy instructs ARIN to ignore where addresses are utilized when processing transfers.  Currently ARIN only considers a block utilized if a covering route is announced in the ARIN region and the usual utilization requirements have been met.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on these two items and previous policy it will be interesting to see if either or both of them obtain enough support to move them forward to be a recommended policy at a future meeting.

2015-7 Simplified requirements for demonstrated need for IPv4 transfers

Policy Summary: Replaces the needs test for transfers with an officer’s attestation to 50% use within 24 months.

Discussion: This policy is intended to loosen the transfer requirements, but leave the other transfer qualification methods intact in case an organization want to use them.

2015-8 Reassignment records for IPv4 End-Users

Policy Summary: Allows end-user organizations to add reassignment records to the ARIN database.

Discussion: Reassignment records can be used for a number of different functions which could benefit the overall desire to increase database accuracy by allowing organizations to add additional details in the database.  This policy has been weakly supported on the list, but it will be interesting to see if it gathers more support at the meeting.

2015-9 Eliminating needs-based evaluation for Section 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 transfers

Policy Summary: Removes needs-based testing from the transfer policy.

Discussion: This policy has been supported and not supported by the “usual” sides in this debate.  It is unclear if anything has changes substantially at this point such that a policy like this could move forward.

2015-10 Minimum IPv6 Assignments

Policy Summary: Sets a utilization “floor” to encourage ISPs to give users an adequate IPv6 allocation per the IETF guidelines.

Discussion: This policy is supported by those who believe that ISPs will not issue large enough blocks (e.g. /56 or larger) to end users.  Statements of non-support have been seen by operators who note that how they provision their network with their users is a organizational decision, not a registry and public policy issue.

2015-11 Remove transfer language which only applied pre-exhaustion of IPv4 pool

Policy Summary: Removes language in the policy manual which was used prior to IPv4 exhaustion.

Discussion: This policy is intended to cleanup the policy manual by removing language that is no longer applicable because the policy conditions under which policy sections were slated to be used are no longer applicable.

Next week is the ARIN 35 meeting in San Francisco.   Here is my look ahead at the some of the nine policies being discussed at the meetings.  There are four recommended draft that will be discussed along with lots of other items on our agenda.  If you aren’t going to be there in person check out the remote participation options.

2014-1 Out of Region Use

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy allows organizations which have a small block in the region to request resources for use outside of the region.

Discussion: This policy started after it became known that organizations which are generally outside the region were requesting resources and using them almost exclusively outside the region.  The primary motivation for these companies is that IPv4 has already been depleted at other RIRs.  The policy took a number of twists and turns, but in general the community would like to see organizations which are headquartered in the region to be able to get addresses for all of their networks globally.  While this seems simple reducing this to policy has been a challenge.

The policy as currently drafted only requires a small nexus of addresses in the region /22 of IPv4, /44 of IPv6, or 1 ASN.  ARIN’s legal counsel has raised strong concerns regarding this policy and those concerns will likely be the root of the discussion at the meeting.

2014-6 Remove Operational Reverse DNS Text

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy removes text in the number policy manual which defines ARIN’s operational practice with regard to reverse DNS records.

Discussion: The purpose of this policy is to remove text out of the policy manual which is operational in nature rather than number policy.  It is planned that this operational policy be moved to other locations where it can be updated as needed by ARIN’s operational staff, rather than the number resource community.

2014-14 Remove Needs Test on Small Transfers

2014-14 Policy Summary: This draft policy removes needs testing from blocks which are smaller than /20 and permits an organization to have one needs-free transfer per year as long as a corporate officer attests to the organizations need of the addresses.

Discussion: This policy was rewritten extensively, largely by myself, with input from members of the AC.  When the policy was returned to the list the new text seems to have fallen flat without much discussion.  In my mind this means I have crafted text that now appeals to very few because it makes great compromises between the two sides of the argument for and against needs testing in the transfer market, or people don’t think this type of policy will solve the problems that exist in the current transfer market.  I suspect this policy will likely be abandoned by the AC following the meeting.  Hopefully, at least we have a robust discussion about what types of policy changes are needed as ARIN moves to mostly processing transfers rather than issuing addresses from the IPv4 free pool.

2014-21 Modification to CI pool

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy sets asside an additional /16 for use by critical infrastructure.

Discussion: The policy is intended to benefit the  Internet exchange point community, which is rapidly changing in the region.  Given the imminent run-out of IPv4 free pool in the ARIN region, this policy is intended to insure that exchange points will have the number resources they need to continue to expand and provide needed interchange services for years to come.

2014-22 Removal of Minimum in Section 4.10

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy changes the minimum block size from /28 to /24 for the IPv6 transition block.

Discussion: This policy increases the minimum block size because recent testing has noted that smaller blocks may not be routable.  This is, in my opinion, a chicken and egg, problem.  People aren’t accepting smaller blocks because there aren’t many of them now, and they haven’t really been issued by the registries to entities which have the ability to get them routed.  Others believe that the /24 boundary is so engrained in the operator community that they won’t change thus making smaller blocks basically useless to organizations which receive them.  I suspect that the larger ISPs and providers will support this change as it allows them to maintain the status quo rather than changing to support the changing network environment.

2015-1 Change in IPv6 End-User Assignment criteria

Policy Summary: This draft policy changes the assignment rules for small organizations.

Discussion: It was pointed out recently that a type of small organization currently cannot receive an IPv6 assignment because the criteria is too strict.  Furthermore, it is noted that renumbering is a complicated and costly process and these small organizations would not like to have to take on the renumbering process when they change providers.

Next week is the ARIN meeting in Baltimore.  There also will be a public policy consultation at Nanog 62 on Tuesday morning.  Here is my look ahead at the some of the nine policies being discussed at the meetings.  There is only one recommended draft that will be discussed, but lots of other draft policies are on the agenda and we will be looking for input on how to proceed.

2014-9 Resolve RSA & 8.2 Transfer Conflict

Policy Summary: This recommended draft policy removes two words (“aggregate” and “reclaim”) from the mergers and acquisitions section of the transfer policy.

Discussion: The current registration services agreement, the contract that governs the relationship between ARIN and resource holders, has language which prevents ARIN from reclaiming address space when it is underutilized.  However, the M&A transfer policy has language which prevents an organization from transferring their resource into their new name when they are underutilized.  Because of this, we end up with orphaned records which don’t really match the new organization who is the new resource holder.  Initially the draft policy had language in it which would have solved this problem, but this was removed because a number of critics of the policy believed that needs testing still should be performed and enforced for M&A transfers.

At this point, when IPv4 addresses are assets which can be transferred by sale to another organization, the limits in the M&A policy don’t make sense to me and only seem to create an environment where number resource records are not updated because current utilization rates may not be met across the new or combined organization.  Still this seems like a symbolic change that people have supported and will probably achieve consensus at the meetings.

2014-14 Remove Needs Test on Small Transfers

2014-20 Slow Start Transfer & Simplified Needs

Both of these policies are suggesting changes in the transfer policies due to the imminent run-out of the IPv4 free pool and the changing requirements of the transfer market.

2014-14 Policy Summary: This draft policy removes needs testing from blocks which are smaller than /16 and permits an organization to have one needs-free transfer per year.

2014-20 Policy Summary: This draft is a complex change to both the current IPv4 policy and its related transfer elements.  It seeks to significantly change how we look at the various aspects of obtaining addresses from ARIN or on the transfer market.

Discussion: I believe that changes are necessary for the transfer policy and the existing IPv4 policy as the free-pool is depleted.  How we address these changes is critical to the success of ARIN and its mission, but also the success of the transition to IPv6.  These two policies take different approaches toward the changes which are necessary after IPv4 depletion in the ARIN region.  I suspect there will be a lot of discussion about these two policies and the need to update the existing policy set in a post IPv4 depletion world.

2014-16 Section 4.10 Austerity Policy Update

Policy Summary: This draft policy creates a new subsection of the policy manual to provide an austerity pool of IPv4 resources for organizations which do not currently have any resources directly from ARIN.

I drafted this policy after a number of discussions at the last ARIN meeting in Chicago where it was noted that the current IPv4 policy has limitations inherent in it for new entrants.   This draft was modeled on the successful implementation of similar policies in the APNIC and RIPE regions.

Discussion: Most of the discussion about this draft has been about how to divide up the current /10 and the IANA reclaimed blocks between the existing transition technology pool and the new pool created by this policy.  Hopefully, it will become clear during our discussions if the community supports creating an austerity pool and how they wish to divide up the currently reserved /10 and the IANA reclaimed blocks for new organizations which do not currently have address blocks from ARIN.

2014-17 Change utilization requirements

Policy Summary: This draft policy changes how IPv4 utilization is calculated to deal with limitations on subsequent allocation for some organizations.

Issues:  The draft policy currently changes the utilization definition for all organizations.  The side effect of this is that large organizations could obtain large new blocks just from the implementation of this policy.  A few options to change the draft policy text are being discussed to deal with this issue.

Discussion: This policy fixes a known issue for smaller organizations which has occurred due to the smaller 3-month allocation model that is currently in use for subsequent allocations.  While this policy lowers the utilization bar and has the perceived negative effect noted above for large organizations, this policy as written now could be beneficial for the transfer market as it would make it easier for organizations to meet the utilization requirements for future transfers.