[ppml] Definition of an (IPv6) End Site

Thu Apr 6 10:13:35 EDT 2006

My confusion rests not on who is an end-site, but how many end-sites that
who is.

Let me give you an example.  Lets say I am and ISP and I have a customer
that owns a chain of 100 hardware stores across the US.  Each store is
independently operated.  Each store has a separate Internet connection
through me.  Each store has a single LAN that is only connected to the
Internet.  The stores have no interconnection at all.

But there is one person at the corporate office that orders all of the
T1 installs, and all bills are sent to the corporate office under a single
company name.  

Since there is only one end-user that has a business relationship with me,
would this only qualify as a single end-site, and thus all 100 locations
should share a single /48?  Or can I consider each separate network ate
each separate location an end-site?  In this case I could assign 100 /48s.

What if the sites are interconnected, in that case should it be one
end-site?

What if the sites are interconnected, but each site has a different
contact, but it is all part of the same compnay, in that case should it be
one end-site?

I do understand the other confusion that is going on as well, for example
how is the IRS an ISP.  

What I want to suggest is if you are trying to tighten the language,
please also consider the case above .

___Jason

==========================================================================
Jason Schiller                                               (703)886.6648
Senior Internet Network Engineer                         fax:(703)886.0512
Public IP Global Network Engineering                       schiller at uu.net
UUNET / Verizon                         jason.schiller at verizonbusiness.com

The good news about having an email address that is twice as long is that
it increases traffic on the Internet.

On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Thomas Narten wrote:

> Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 09:54:24 -0400
> From: Thomas Narten <narten at us.ibm.com>
> To: ARIN PPML <ppml at arin.net>
> Subject: [ppml] Definition of an (IPv6) End Site
> 
> > We've been 'round and 'round on this before; the definition of "end
> > site" is obviously inadequate.
> 
> If there is confusion, by definition it's inadequate! :-)
> 
> > I'd propose that a single network with private connectivity between
> > locations should count as a single "site".  This roughly correlates
> > with who qualifies for an ASN.  If the number of locations/subnets
> > within that AS justifies it, they would qualify for a larger prefix
> > than /48.
> 
> I tend to agree. Speaking as a participant in the discussions that led
> to the original policy (and the current wording), there was a clear
> intention to split the world into two groups:
> 
>  - those that provide internet connectivity to customers (i.e., ISPs),
>    where the customers are not the same organization/company as the
>    provider, and where there are many _different_ customers, and in
>    particular not just separate "offices" in a larger businesses.
> 
>  - End sites, those that use the internet, get internet service from
>    ISPs and whose core business is not providing network services to
>    others.
> 
> Obviously, there are boundary cases that are tricky. But the overall
> context here was that in order to get good aggregation (and reasonably
> bounded routing tables), you wanted ISPs to aggregate addresses for
> _many_ end users, i.e., customers. Doing otherwise would run the risk
> of (essentially) giving PI space to end users in an unscalable way.
> 
> Quoting from the official (current) text:
> 
> > 6.2.9. End site
> >
> > An end site is defined as an end user (subscriber) who has a
> > business relationship with a service provider that involves: 
> >
> > 1. that service provider assigning address space to the end user
> >
> > 2. that service provider providing transit service for the end user
> > to other sites
> >
> > 3. that service provider carrying the end user's traffic.
> >
> > 4. that service provider advertising an aggregate prefix route that
> > contains the end user's assignment
> 
> In my mind, the above was intended to apply to separate
> businesses/organizations, and not large companies that have separate
> IT divisions. What we didn't want is to allow end sites to simply set
> up shell orgnizations so that they would look like LIRs on paper.
> 
> If we really wanted large end sites to get PI space, a separate policy
> should be developed (as is being discussed now).
> 
> And, one of the other goals above is that all of the customer address
> ranges are covered (in the global routing tables) by a single
> aggregate prefix.
> 
> For many large end sites, this is not what is really desired. I.e., if
> someone has large offices in (say) US, Europe and Japan, it may well
> be that each of those sites wants to be connected to the Internet via
> local ISPs, rather than via (say) the US location (with everything
> routed via the US connect point). But if this sort of local
> connectivity is desired, having a single aggregate that gets
> advertised (by giving the end site a PI assignment) doesn't happen in
> practice, raising the question of whether a PI assignment makes sense
> in the way people are claiming they are needed.
> 
> Thomas
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