[ppml] Policy Proposal 2005-6: IPv4 Micro-allocations for Anycast Services - abandoned

The ARIN Advisory Council (AC), acting under the provisions of the ARIN
Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process (IRPEP), has reviewed policy
proposal 2005-6 and has determined that there is no community consensus
in favor of the proposal and should thus be abandoned. The AC made this
determination at their meeting at the conclusion of the ARIN Public
Policy meeting on October 27, 2005. The results of the AC meeting were
reported by the Chair of the AC at the member meeting. This report can
be found at
http://www.arin.net/meetings/minutes/ARIN_XVI/mem.html

In order for this proposal to be further considered the author must use
the last call petition process as defined in the ARIN Internet Resource
Policy Evaluation Process. This policy will be considered to be
abandoned if the author of the proposal does not initiate a last call
petition by 12:00 Noon, Eastern Time, November 8, 2005.

The current policy proposal text is provided below and is also available
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2005_6.html

The ARIN Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process can be found at
http://www.arin.net/policy/irpep.html.

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Policy Proposal 2005-6: IPv4 Micro-allocations for Anycast Services

Policy term: permanent

Policy statement: In the NRPM IPv4 section, renumber 4.4 to 4.4.1, and add:

4.4.2 Micro-allocations for anycast services - ARIN will make
micro-allocations to organizations wishing to deploy anycast based
services, provided they meet the following criteria:

     * All of the criteria normally required to receive IPv4 space, AND
     * The organization must have multiple (at least two) discrete
multi-homed networks.
     * The organization must identify which networks, ASNs, or sites
will host the new service.
     * The organization must provide a description of the anycast service.

Micro-allocations for anycast services will be no longer than a /24.
These allocations will be made out of blocks reserved for
micro-allocation purposes. ISPs and other organizations receiving these
micro-allocations will be charged under the ISP fee schedule, while
end-users will be charged under the fee schedule for end-users.

Policy Rationale

There are an increasing number of anycast-based applications being
offered by service providers and other organizations. Indeed, many basic
infrastructure services (like the DNS root servers) are already anycast
based. (See RFC 1546 for an authoritative discussion of anycast services.)

Deployment of new services is hampered, however, by current IPv4
allocation policies. For organizations that do not have legacy IP space,
justifying a /22 to serve a handful of addresses is effectively
impossible. As many ISPs also filter routes longer than /22, it is
impractical to use a longer mask for any netblock that is utilized for
an anycast service. This situation is also generally unfavorable to
younger organizations, while giving older organizations that do have a
surplus of legacy space a competitive advantage.

In light of this, some organizations may simply lie about their
addressing needs in order to convince an RIR that a /22 is required,
when a much smaller network would suffice. This is not a behavior that
should be encouraged by policy.

The obvious answer is that a micro-allocation scheme needs to be created
to allow organizations deploying anycast services to acquire a network
of more appropriate size.

It is also clear that a micro-allocation policy that makes it easier for
organizations to acquire small netblocks may lead to additional improper
allocations to organizations that simply wish to acquire additional
small blocks of space. This policy proposal attempts to address that by
requiring more stringent requirements for such allocations.

Timetable for implementation: immediate