[ppml] Policy Proposal 2006-4: IPv6 Direct PI Assignments for End Sites - revised text

[Member Services]

Policy Proposal 2006-4: IPv6 Direct PI Assignments for End Sites has 
been revised by the author. This proposal is open for discussion on this 
mailing list and will be on the agenda at the upcoming ARIN Public 
Policy Meeting.

The current policy proposal text is provided below and is also available
at: http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2006_4.html

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


### * ###


Policy Proposal 2006-4: IPv6 Direct PI Assignments for End Sites

Policy Proposal 2006-4, version 2

Proposal type: new

Policy term: permanent

Policy statement:

Add new subsection to the NRPM:

6.5.8. Direct assignments to end sites

     6.5.8.1. To qualify for a direct end site assignment, an
organization must meet all of the following criteria:

         1. not be an LIR;
         2. be an end site;
         3. be currently multihomed using IPv4;
         4. have a direct assignment from ARIN of at least a IPv4 /19
and can show the current utilization of 80% of an IPv4 /19 equivalent.

     6.5.8.2. Direct assignment size to end sites

     Organizations that meet the direct end site assignment criteria are
eligible to receive a direct assignment of /48 out of a reserved /44.
Organizations with multiple ASNs may be assigned a prefix large enough
to permit a /48 to be assigned to each ASN.

     Direct Assignments shall be allocated from a separate super-block
to allow for LIRs to filter.

     6.5.8.3. Subsequent direct assignments to end sites

     Organization's assignment size may be increased to the next larger
prefix (to a maximum of /44) when the organization demonstrates any of
the following criteria:

         1. 50% of the assigned /64 subnets are utilized
         2. 50% of the /48 subnets are assigned and utilized to unique
ASN assignments

Organizations which request and can justify assignments larger than /44
shall qualify as LIRs and must make application for an allocation under
policies applicable to an LIR, except that they shall be exempted from
the requirement to assign addresses to other organizations.

Only one direct assignment may be made to an end site organization under
Section 6.5.8

Policy Rationale

This policy is proposed as an alternative to the existing 2005-1 policy
proposal. This policy is intended to be more conservative that the
existing proposed 2005-1 policy. While this policy does allow PI
assignments to end-sites, it limits the scope to current IPv4 holders
with direct assignments. A more conservative policy is desirable as the
first IPv6 PI policy.

Current ARIN policy does not permit an end-site from obtaining a
Provider Independent IPv6 address block directly from ARIN. There is
currently no viable IPv6 multihoming method available for these
end-sites. Shim6 & other methods have been proposed as a possible method
to meet multihoming requirements. Today, no implementation or
alternatives exist to “traditional” IPv4 multihoming which announces
unique address space from an ASN.

The largest end-sites (corporations & content providers) have the
greatest to gain and/or lose by not having an available method to
multihome. While IPv6 provides for stateless auto configuration for end
hosts, no new methods for renumbering the infrastructure are available.
The cost and complexity of renumbering these large organizations makes
it essential to provide stable address resources which are not assigned
from a LIR.

The lack of an end-site assignment policy is currently preventing the
real planning and deployment of IPv6 networks in these organizations.

Other policy proposals (2005-1) addressing this issue have been
presented at the ARIN 15 & 16 meetings. This policy proposal attempts to
address the issues that were raised on the ppml mailing list and at the
public policy meetings for 2005-1.

Specifically, the main issue surrounding the creation of consensus on
this policy appears to be the criteria for which end-sites should be
able to obtain an endsite assignment. Concerns have been raised about
the creation of a new IPv6 “swamp” by having a policy that is too
lenient. This issue is addressed in the policy by limiting the endsite
assignments to current organizations with a modest IPv4 assignment.

The assignment of IPv4 resources is orthogonal to the assignment of IPv6
addresses. However, the use of existing IPv4 assignments and ARIN
membership are postulated as an appropriate regulator for the initial
assignments under an IPv6 endsite policy. It is reasonable to consider
changes to the membership and IPv4 assignment requirements in the
future. This review should be conducted after the endsite assignment
policy has been in place long enough to understand the demand for
endsite IPv6 assignments and the development of IPv6 networks have matured.

This policy proposal does not attempt to address the assignment needs
for endsites which currently do not have IPv4 assignments.

Timetable for implementation: within 90 days of approval by the BoT