Back to Basics / Our problem

[Jeff Harris]

We currently have assigned to us:

Two /17 allocations = 65,280 IPs
One /18 allocation = 16,320 IPs
One /19 allocation = 8,160 IPs

Total = 89,760 IP addresses

(This is not including some other special legacy allocations which are off
in their own little world. Not much more than a /24 or so).

We currently use enough machines that we would fill several /24's using
name-based virtual hosting.

We are even going to start running out of IP's again in a short amount of
time at our current growth rate.

My problem has been, when I took this job not too long ago, that all of our
subnets occupy one logical segment. The reason is, as ARIN has doled out IPs
to us in small chunks, our network, which is growing rapidly, get's assigned
sporadically across the board. We have some machines using IP ranges from
three subnets. It's a mess and it severely limits my ability to re-architect
the network to incorporate firewalls, VLANs and basic traffic management.

We have to show utilization to ARIN, so they will continue to give us more
IPs, but this means that I have to forgo smart network planning in favor of
showing utilization (which we always do, because we have the demand).

In the past we have asked for one continuous large block of addresses in
order to move to one subnet. We would gladly give back the broken up IP
space in exchange for this. It would make our lives a little easier (except
when we have to start actually changing clients IP addresses. :)

I understand IP space is at a premium, but if we looked at all the large
allocations that took place many years ago, I'm sure there is SEVERELY
wasted IP space out there. As it stands, if we stay at our current growth
rate, we're going to need twice this many IP addresses next year. Are we
going to have to deal with 8 allocations then, or 10?


Jeff Harris - jeff at supportteam.net
Chief Engineer - C I Host



----- Original Message -----
From: "Alec H. Peterson" <ahp at hilander.com>
To: "Bill Darte" <billd at cait.wustl.edu>
Cc: "Vwp (E-mail)" <vwp at arin.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 9:59 AM
Subject: Re: Back to Basics


: Bill Darte wrote:
: >
: > ARIN policy needs to be directed toward real problems....I have seen no
: > justification for this policy except that "it wastes addresses".....but
the
: > magnitude of that waste must be assessed before the issue rises to level
of
: > a need for ARIN intervention.... I reiterate my earlier questions...
: >
: > 1. How many addresses ARE being used this way now and (suitable
: > approximation)
: > 2. what is the slope of the the utilization curve and (ditto)
: > 3. What are the potential impacts upon that utilization rate in the next
3-5
: > years??? (ditto)
:
: Very good questions.
:
: Can web hosters on the list give us a concept of how many IP addresses you
: currently have in use, compared with how many IPs you could reasonably
: consume with an equal size distribution of name-based virtual hosts
(keeping
: in mind that conversion of existing infrastructure would not be required)?
:
: Alec
:
: --
: Alec H. Peterson - ahp at hilander.com
: Staff Scientist
: CenterGate Research Group - http://www.centergate.com
: "Technology so advanced, even _we_ don't understand it!"