[arin-ppml] IP Address Policy

[John Springer]

Hi Steven

Welcome and thanks for a stimulating thread. I very much look forward to 
your policy proposal. I hope we can discuss it in Dallas.

The following comment caught my eye

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012, Steven Ryerse wrote:

> It’s funny, there is no vinegar in my first post on this subject but it sure generated some aimed at me!

So I went back and grabbed the first post, which I am appending below, to 
which I have a few comments inline.

> Well, I?m in a quandary and I have decided to come to this Community for 
> help.  I am addressing this submission to both the Community and to 
> John Curran as the chief representative for ARIN.  We are in the process 
> of building a data center complete with redundant power with Diesel 
> Generator, redundant fiber Internet lines, and the usual data center 
> redundancy stuff.

As a member of the community, so far so good.

<snip>

> So, last week I went back to ARIN and requested the minimum available 
> block size that ARIN will allocate for the purposes of using it with 
> BGP.  I believe that the minimum for this is a /22 block and 
> coincidentally that is what we need for the next year or so to run our 
> data center.  So far so good.  From reading the constant posts to this 
> community I was kind of expecting to be asked to justify if our current 
> block was used up but was surprised when my request was Denied.  The 
> blurb they used to deny my request said:

<some stuff>

I'm not an expert but could you be doing it wrong? Others in thread have 
more concrete suggestions but that would be my first guess.

<some reasons why one might want PI addresses>

> When I pointed out to ARIN that I did not want to have to renumber in 
> the future their response was:

> Thank you for the reply. We understand what you're saying, for sure, but 
> unfortunately, ARIN policy does not allow us to provide an ISP for the 
> purposes of running BGP. Based on the information provided in your 
> request, you do not qualify to receive an initial allocation from ARIN 
> under any current policy.

This is starting to get a hair acidic. You did not want?

> So because of ARIN?s policies and their unwillingness to assign me 
> additional IPv4 resources, I am left with only one other viable 
> solution. That is to go out on the open market (thru Bankruptcy Court or 
> not)  and buy a Legacy /22 from somebody who has one to sell and pay 
> them for it and use that block.

Really? Only one other viable solution? Seems unlikely. Talk to ARIN 
staff. They will help you even if you start to get all defensive.

> I would prefer not to go around ARIN and prefer to get the IP Block we 
> need directly from ARIN ?

I would prefer that too.

> but - I have now tried to do that without success.

Well, not very hard just yet.

> I think our request was reasonable based on actual need.

Evidently not. You did not follow policy.

> didn?t request something crazy like a /20 or whatever.

Well, no. Not crazy like a /20, crazy like you didn't read, understand 
and follow policy in your request.

> Therefore I am looking for help from this community.

But you don't understand, we made the policy.

> Based on what ARIN has told me I won?t qualify for a /22 unless I first 
> get a block from one of my upstream providers which I won?t do because 
> it locks me into a vendor.

Your network, your rules.

> So either the Policy has to change or I have to purchase a Legacy block 
> independent of ARIN.

Again with the either ors. Be calm. Talk to ARIN staff. They will help you 
figure out the right way do do what you want. They are not meanies.

> I somewhat doubt based on all the submissions that I have observed in 
> this community that I can achieve a change in ARIN?s policy but I?ll 
> give that a try.

Yeah, well, there's rules to that too.

<excerpt from ARIN mission statement followed by preliminary policy 
proposal>

Flesh out a template and submit please. Scott and Marty have offered to 
help.

<some rationale for the proposed proposal>

> So fellow community members and ARIN staff, is there a consensus to 
> enact my proposed policy addition, or am I to be forced to go outside of 
> the normal ARIN allocation process to meet my organization?s needs? 
> This submission is intended to be constructive and I hope it is received 
> that way.  I look forward to constructive input from this community.

Constructively, this is not how it works. I look forward to seeing and 
discussing a policy proposal. None of this is one.

And so as to the vinegary bit, at least pretty defensive and seemingly 
resistant to understanding and following policy and procedures. All of the 
ARIN staff that I have met (lots) are super nice and go way out of the way 
to help folks get what they need. Within policy.

I'm pretty sure they will help you if you let them. You may not even need 
to change policy. But if that is what you are really after, go for it.

John Springer