[ppml] Policy Proposal 2002-3: Micro-Assignments forMultihome d Networks

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 02:20:51AM -0400, Jeff S Wheeler wrote:
> I agree that organizations who do not possess an ASN can certainly
> benefit from portable address space, however I think that organizations
> with an ASN are more able and likely to benefit from it. A requirement
> for having an ASN is to be multi-homed, or to have "a unique routing
> policy". I think possession of an ASN is an acceptable way to determine
> if an organization is multi-homed. The only worry that I have with that
> case is, will people falsify ASN applications just to get portable
> space? Clearly we do not want that, as AS numbers are also limited and
> if memory serves, they are projected to run out before IP addresses. :-/

As a practical matter I'm quite ok with requiring someone to have
an ASN, via the current process to do that, before getting an
allocation.  Indeed, I think virtually all applications for IP space
from ARIN should be made by someone who has an ASN.  I understand
there are some reasons people without a need for an ASN might need
address space, but that seems more like the exception than the rule.

> I would also like to repeat my comment that I don't think it is valuable
> for the ARIN to issue /24s to multi-homed networks when there is enough
> address space available to issue them slightly larger networks. This
> will reduce the rate of follow-up assignment requests when organizations
> outgrow their initial request, and allow ISPs to filter those pesky /24s
> in whatever block is utilized for this new initiative. I suggest that a
> minimum assignment size of /22 would be more beneficial, and that if a
> multi-homed organization can today justify a /24, there is little harm
> in giving them some room to grow.

I'm not sure I agree.  I do think we should give people who expect
to grow room to grow, however many of the people who most need this
sort of policy don't need a lot of space.  Most of the people running
high availability sites do it behind some sort of load balancers
and the like and actually only use a very small number of IP's.
One need look only as far as some of the largest sites, I see
www.ebay.com resolves to 8 IP's right now, and www.cnn.com to 16,
for example.  Again, this policy is really targeted at end users
who need to multihome, not at small ISP's.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request at tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
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