/24 assignments to multi-homed customers who can't justify th e us e of >126 hosts in 3-6 months

Thu Mar 15 15:40:51 EST 2001

Richard,

Thanks for the info, in regards to your question:

>To be clear, is your first proposal above to consider /24 assignments by
>ISPs justified based solely on the multi-homing requirements of the
customer?

Yes.

Jon Foreman 
BBO - Service Activation Engineer 
jforeman at bbo.com 
Desk: 703.641.6451 
Mobile: 703.403.4263 
Pager: 7034034263 at message.bam.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Jimmerson [mailto:richardj at arin.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 3:28 PM
To: jforeman at bbo.com; ppml at arin.net
Subject: RE: /24 assignments to multi-homed customers who can't justify the
us e of >126 hosts in 3-6 months

Hello Jon,

Thank you for posting your messages to the ARIN public policy
mailing list.

> I sent email directly to ARIN and also phoned the registration help desk.
In both situations I was
> informed that ARIN does not allocate or allow others to allocate netblocks
based on routing needs.

This is an accurate account of the current situation.  ARIN follows the
assignment guidelines outlined in RFC 2050, paragraph 3.1.  In summary,
end-users will be assigned a block of IP address space based on their 
immediate requirements and one year projections.  The organization needs 
to demonstrate 25% of their assignment will be utilized immediately and
that they have a projected one year need for 50% of the assignment size
they receive.  This is the guideline ARIN follows when reviewing the
reassignments ISPs have made to their downstream end-user customers.

> As far as I see it, for the Internet community as a whole, there are two
solutions:
> 1) ARIN needs to change its policy to accommodate institutions that have a
need to be multi-homed, or,
> 2) ISPs need to modify their routing policies to allow advertisements
longer than a /24.

Of course, ARIN is not in a position to comment on the second proposed
solution listed above.  In regard to the first proposed solution, however,
ARIN welcomes comments from all interested parties.  Policies in the ARIN
region are formed through open policy discussions that take place on mailing
lists like this one and public policy meetings held twice yearly.  The next
public policy meeting will be held early next month.  Information about this
meeting can be found at http://www.arin.net/meetings/index.html
<http://www.arin.net/meetings/index.html> 

To be clear, is your first proposal above to consider /24 assignments by
ISPs justified based solely on the multi-homing requirements of the
customer?

> It would be interesting if ARIN could share the number of ASNs that have
been registered within the last year. 

This information is available at http://www.arin.net/regserv/IPStats.html
<http://www.arin.net/regserv/IPStats.html> 

> If the appropriate parties at ARIN could project the number of ASNs that
will be registered
> over the next few years.. 

A presentation entitled, "AS Number Depletion," was presented by Scott
Marcus
at the ARIN public policy meeting in October 2000.  This presentation may 
provide some of the information you are looking for.  It can be found at
  http://www.arin.net/minutes/public/arinvi/ARIN_VI_PPM.htm
<http://www.arin.net/minutes/public/arinvi/ARIN_VI_PPM.htm> 

Again, thank you for posting your messages to the public policy mailing
list.  All parties interested in this subject are invited to make
comments.

Richard Jimmerson 
Director of Operations 
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net]On Behalf Of
jforeman at bbo.com
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 1:51 PM
To: ppml at arin.net
Subject: RE: /24 assignments to multi-homed customers who can't justify the
us e of >126 hosts in 3-6 months

Hi,

I received some informative responses from members of this list regarding
the initial message I sent (see below). Could someone from ARIN please
respond with your thoughts on this matter?

I sent email directly to ARIN and also phoned the registration help desk. In
both situations I was informed that ARIN does not allocate or allow others
to allocate netblocks based on routing needs.

As far as I see it, for the Internet community as a whole, there are two
solutions:

1) ARIN needs to change its policy to accommodate institutions that have a
need to be multi-homed, or,
2) ISPs need to modify their routing policies to allow advertisements longer
than a /24.

In my opinion, the most viable solution is the first one mentioned above. In
order to implement solution #2, you'd have to get all of the ISPs that are
out there to change their routing policies. This is much more difficult than
having one organization (ARIN) make the change.

The additional problem with solution #2 is: if ISPs change their routing
policies to allow advertisements longer than a /24, can their routers
accommodate the increased size of the Internet routing table? Probably not,
since that is why the /24 policies are in place.

Of course, the main problem with solution #1 is that certain netblocks will
be inefficiently allocated. However, most customers that are multi-homed
typically have enough hosts to require a /24 netblock or larger, so in all
likelihood, there probably won't be many institutions that can't justify a
/24 but need to be multi-homed.

It would be interesting if ARIN could share the number of ASNs that have
been registered within the last year. Based on my experience over the last 2
years installing BGP customers at ISPs, I would estimate that, at the very
high end, 10% of institutions that aim to be multi-homed will require a
larger netblock than they can justify in order to accommodate those routing
needs. If the appropriate parties at ARIN could project the number of ASNs
that will be registered over the next few years.. you could calculate how
many networks/IPs will be inefficiently allocated and see what sort of
impact a policy change would have.

Thanks,

Jon Foreman 
BBO - Service Activation Engineer 
jforeman at bbo.com 
Desk: 703.641.6451 
Mobile: 703.403.4263 
Pager: 7034034263 at message.bam.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: jforeman at bbo.com [mailto:jforeman at bbo.com]
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 2:35 PM
To: ppml at arin.net
Subject: /24 assignments to multi-homed customers who can't justify the us e
of >126 hosts in 3-6 months

All, 

For a customer of an ISP that meets the following criteria: 

1) has registered an ASN and will be multi-homed to two or more ISPs, 
2) cannot reasonably justify the use of a /24 within 3 - 6 months based on
ARIN IP allocation policies and 
3) the customer is obtaining IP space from one of their ISPs. 

In my view, such a customer will require at least a /24 so that their
network advertisement will be accepted by all ISPs since most ISPs will not
accept advertisements  from their peers of networks have a netmask any
longer than a /24.

Is it acceptable, in ARIN's view, to assign a /24 to such a customer? I
never came across any documentation at www.arin.net that discusses such a
situation.

Thanks, 

Jon Foreman 
BBO - Data Install 
jforeman at bbo.com 
Desk: 703.641.6451 
Mobile: 703.403.4263 
Pager: 7034034263 at message.bam.com 

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