[arin-discuss] Template-based email as a third registry access method (was: Bringing back IP resource Request Templates)

[Robert Marder]

Thanks for the clarification John.

I would agree that resource request templates can probably go since 
they are so rare and are a manual process anyway.

I think the main concern of people here was the idea that more and more 
email templates would be removed until everything was web only.

As long as SWIP and reassignment templates are maintained I'm happy.

On 02.04.2012 15:01, John Curran wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>
>> A while back, ARIN stopped accepting email templates for resource 
>> requests.
>>
>> I believe in the discussions at members meetings prior to this, we 
>> were assured that the addition of a web interface would not remove the 
>> ability to use templates and I, for one, find templates to be much 
>> easier and more convenient than a web interface (especially the 
>> current state of ARIN on-line).
>>
>> Suggestion 2011.21 was submitted as an effort to address this. It is 
>> my understanding that 2011.21 has not received any support from the 
>> membership. If any of you are interested in having template 
>> functionality restored, ARIN needs to know that. If not, likely this 
>> suggestion is soon to be closed without any action and templates will 
>> forever fade into history.
>
> Owen -
>
>  To be clear, we do accept some mail templates (those which have been
>  modified to contain an API key to secure the request) for many 
> common
>  operations, including Point-of-Contact (POC) and Org changes, 
> delegation
>  of resources, etc.   You can see the full list of requests which are
>  supported via email templates here:
>    <https://www.arin.net/resources/interacting.html>
>
>  ARIN decommissioned some extremely old systems which handled the 
> original
>  email templates, as we needed to move to a single consistent 
> database and
>  these systems were not maintainable.  As part of moving to the new 
> system
>  (capable of supporting ARIN Online, and RESTful interfaces, etc), we 
> built
>  a backward compatibility interface for select email templates for 
> the most
>  commonly used functions (i.e. SWIP & related tasks) but did not do 
> all
>  requests since that would have been a much larger effort and would 
> have
>  required significant upkeep whenever number resource policy changed.
>  We cannot just "restore" the template functionality; it would 
> instead
>  require a development effort to implement further shims for each 
> type
>  of resource request email template that you want created.
>
>  I will note that in 2011 we received 3,269 IP requests (for IPv4 and 
> IPv6
>  resources) and 1,644 ASN requests; i.e. a total of 4,913 requests 
> for new
>  number resources, and the vast majority of these were made via ARIN
> Online.
>  While we've heard lots of positive feedback on the web-based ARIN 
> Online
>  system and the RESTful interfaces that folks are now using for 
> building
>  automation between their systems and ARIN, we are very interested 
> any
>  improvements that can be made to the registry systems and it is 
> simply
>  a question of prioritization for development and maintenance 
> resources.
>
>  If there is demand for also having email templates as an ongoing 
> third
>  form of access, then this is definitely something that the ARIN 
> Board
>  needs to be made aware of, as it will permanently increase the 
> ongoing
>  effort for future maintenance of the registry to carry this method 
> for
>  resources requests in addition to the web-based ARIN Online and the
>  RESTful programmatic interfaces to the registry.  There hasn't been
>  much discussion of this topic so it is hard to gauge demand, but it 
> is
>  important for everyone to realize that implementing and maintaining 
> the
>  additional access method of template email for all requests (as 
> opposed
>  to just the current subset) will definitely increase our costs (the
>  actual amount will vary based on rate and type of policy changess) 
> and
>  increasing costs is not the direction provided to me by the ARIN 
> Board.
>
>  I would encourage further discussion on this list and in Vancouver.
>
> Thanks for raising this topic!
> /John
>
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> ARIN
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ARIN-Discuss
> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
> the ARIN Discussion Mailing List (ARIN-discuss at arin.net).
> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-discuss
> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.