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

[Kevin Blumberg]

I am not in support of adding back this feature. I believe that there is better use
for the funds that are allocated to development and would not support raising fee's
to support a minority of users who "prefer" one method over another. 

I believe that improvements to ARIN Online should be looked at especially in the area
of securing who can change that data. I would far rather see every ARIN Online member
have a two factor authentication key.  I would also suggest that the ability to save a draft
of a submission be supported.

One last note, I do believe that the current email templates that exist, especially the SWIP
templates should continue to be supported.

Thanks,

Kevin Blumberg






> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-discuss-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-discuss-
> bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of John Curran
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 4:01 PM
> To: Owen DeLong
> Cc: arin-discuss List
> Subject: [arin-discuss] Template-based email as a third registry access
> method (was: Bringing back IP resource Request Templates)
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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