[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-4: RIR Principles

[William Herrin]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 12:53 PM, ARIN <info at arin.net> wrote:
> 0.2. Hierarchical aggregation (Routability)
>
> Policies for managing Internet number resources must support distribution of
> globally unique Internet addresses in a hierarchical manner, permitting the
> routing scalability of the addresses. This scalability is necessary to
> ensure proper operation of Internet routing, although it must be stressed
> that routability is in no way guaranteed with the allocation or assignment
> of IPv4 addresses.

This puts the cart before the horse. Scalable routing is important and
registry policies must facilitate it. Hierarchical routing is only
important indirectly in service of aggregation which itself serves
scalable routing only because of BGP's technical limitations. Where
BGP is partnered with or superseded by a scalable technology that
doesn't require aggregation, it should not be our policy to preclude
its use.

Suggest rewording as:

0.2. Encourage Scalable Internet Routing

Policies for managing Internet number resources must facilitate
scalable routing. This scalability is necessary to ensure proper
operation of the Internet. In the Border Gateway Protocol, scalability
is achieved by announcing only CIDR aggregates of downstream customer
routes which are as large as possible.

0.2.1 ARIN does not set Internet Routing Policy

While ARIN number policy is informed by current routing technologies
and routing policy choices made by Internet Service Provides, ARIN
does not make policies about how routing must or must not be done.
Allocation or assignment of addresses by ARIN in no way guarantees
that those addresses will be routeable on the public Internet.



Regards,
Bill Herrin


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William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
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