[ppml] Policy Proposal 2002-3: Micro-Assignments forMultihome d Networks

[Jeff S Wheeler]

On Mon, 2003-08-25 at 15:51, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> I was thinking of a holdover system, that is first come first served,
> process 200 and then wait until the next month to pick it up.
> 
> That said, feel free to review ARIN's numbers on how many they request
> today.  I'm quite sure 200 is way high, and aside from a possible small
> initial inrush has no chance of actually limiting things.

Leo,

I like your limited-growty-exposure concept and mechanism, however I
fear that the combination of limiting applications to 200/month,
granting /24 requests to non-multihomers, and creating a lengthy queue
will disappoint many.

I suggest that a target maximum number of new assignments per month,
combined with a flexible maximum assignment length, might be a better
approach. Perhaps accepting applications for /21s or /22s for a month
and tweaking the length afterward would be more effective.

I agree that organizations who do not possess an ASN can certainly
benefit from portable address space, however I think that organizations
with an ASN are more able and likely to benefit from it. A requirement
for having an ASN is to be multi-homed, or to have "a unique routing
policy". I think possession of an ASN is an acceptable way to determine
if an organization is multi-homed. The only worry that I have with that
case is, will people falsify ASN applications just to get portable
space? Clearly we do not want that, as AS numbers are also limited and
if memory serves, they are projected to run out before IP addresses. :-/

I believe that some organizations may receive a /24 micro-assignment and
need to grow to an intermediate size, e.g. /22. The growth path for such
organizations should be clearly understood. Perhaps a six-month time to
renumber out of an old micro-assignment block in order to receive more
space from the ARIN, either under the micro-assignment policy or the
traditional initial assignment path?

I would also like to repeat my comment that I don't think it is valuable
for the ARIN to issue /24s to multi-homed networks when there is enough
address space available to issue them slightly larger networks. This
will reduce the rate of follow-up assignment requests when organizations
outgrow their initial request, and allow ISPs to filter those pesky /24s
in whatever block is utilized for this new initiative. I suggest that a
minimum assignment size of /22 would be more beneficial, and that if a
multi-homed organization can today justify a /24, there is little harm
in giving them some room to grow.

As far as ISP filtering goes, if an assignment rate of 200/month is
sustainable, and the mean assignment size under this policy is /22, then
a /10 would satisfy the program for twenty months. I think carving out a
new /10 from existing space available to the ARIN for assignment and
setting its minimum assignment length to /22 will help control route
table growth from new assignment recipients.

--
Jeff S Wheeler