[arin-ppml] ARIN Multiple Discrete Networks Policy

[John Curran]

On Oct 4, 2011, at 8:15 AM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:

> For example, there are an increasing number of small prefixes in the
> IPv6 DFZ, as ISPs are generally not sure what filtering is needed or
> appropriate.  Today, this is not a severe problem, because the v6 DFZ
> is small and deployment remains in its infancy.  This situation may
> evolve rapidly in the next several years, to a point where allocations
> being made today become a new "swamp" that could eventually be far
> worse than its v4 counterpart.

I concur that this is a distinct possibility.

> I don't want to see stupidity impact the v6 DFZ because the larger
> address space increases risk in this area.  There should not be
> organizations with /32 allocations who are announcing /48 networks to
> the DFZ, yet there are.  Some of this is certainly done with explicit
> intent, but much of it is doubtlessly out of sheer stupidity.
> Individual transit networks are not motivated to police their
> customers' advertisements because it simply turns customers to their
> competitors.  I have one down-stream customer who announces over 100
> DFZ routes, yet has three RIR allocations.  This is terrible, but if I
> refuse to honor those routes, they will simply go to someone else;
> this is made obvious by the fact that they have other transit
> providers who gladly accept the routes to get their business.  It is
> not hard to imagine a future where this down-stream has even more
> de-aggregates, because they can create an awful lot of /48s out of a
> /32; and ISPs are not in a good position to police that.
> 
> ARIN should start by making it easy and necessary for members to
> express what routes they intend to inject to the DFZ when they receive
> allocations.  If your IRR was treated as a useful tool for members and
> operators, instead of an afterthought (does it have any authentication
> mechanism yet?), you would already be there.

(Re: authentication, see last's weeks IRR upgrade announcement:
https://www.arin.net/announcements/2011/20110929.html)

Hmm... the ability of folks to express what routes they intend to 
announce doesn't necessarily mean you won't still see an abundance 
of announcements; you'll just see appropriate IRR entries describing 
that routing config in the IRR.

If folks want to tie address policy more tightly to declared routing
policy, that can be done.  Again, this is not something for ARIN to 
do without clear community direction in this area.

> I believe in the future, the ARIN membership will realize that we need
> it to police routing table bloat, or the v4 tables we have today will
> look small and orderly by comparison.

I highly suggest discussion of these ideas on this mailing list or in person 
at Philly (both in the hallways and at the open microphone session). ARIN 
is your organization, and to the extent the membership supports this as a
direction, it will happen.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN