[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2024-8: Restrict the Largest Initial IPv6 Allocation to /20

[Tyler O'Meara]

Hi all,

As the author of this policy I just wanted to chime in with a few responses:

First, as has been mentioned before, this change only applies to the amount of
space that may be given in a single allocation. If an organization is using its
IPv6 space efficiently (as defined later in Section 6), they're more than
welcome to get more allocations. I will note that the standard to obtain these
subsequent blocks is considerably higher than to get the first block. It is
easily conceivable that an organization that would qualify for a /16 under
today's NRPM could not even meet the utilization requirements for a /20 in order
to get a second /20, let alone a /16.

When it comes to smallish blocks, the desire to enable aggregation and smaller
routing tables outweighs concerns about address conservation. However, I believe
that once we're talking about blocks larger than a /20, conservation concerns
outweigh routing table concerns.

Second, it's been mentioned that it is not believed that many organizations
could qualify for a /16 block. It is very difficult to come up with a good
metric to determine the size of an organization, but I think an organization's
v4 allocations are probably a reasonable proxy for this use case. 

The organization that received the /16 block has v4 allocations totaling 50
/24s[1]. Under the current ARIN fee schedule, this would make them a "Small"
organization. According to the presentation made by Nancy Carter at ARIN 53[2],
there are currently (as of April 2024) 1,864 Small ARIN organizations, and a
further 1,559 ARIN organization larger than Small. Given the context of the
numbers, I believe this is only counting RSA members and *not* LRSA members, so
the actual number of ARIN orgs of this size is likely substantially higher.

Given that the number of organizations which could reasonably request a /16 is
on the same order of magnitude as the number of IANA-allocatable /16s, I
personally belive the current policy is too liberal in giving out massively
sized IPv6 allocations.

Tyler


[1] https://bgp.tools/rir-owner/ARIN-CAPITA-120
[2]
https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/ARIN53/materials/monday/arin53_treasurer.pdf

On Thu, 2024-06-27 at 18:17 -0500, David Farmer via ARIN-PPML wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 5:04 PM William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 2:46 PM David Farmer <farmer at umn.edu> wrote:
> > >   As I said, the current policy seems to be functioning as intended.
> > 
> > Hi David,
> > 
> > I can't prove a negative, so let me turn the question around on you:
> > we know a /16 has been allocated. We can't know how they justified it
> > because that information is private. Can you produce a -notional-
> > justification for a /16 that we all agree is -reasonable-? If you
> > cannot, then what purpose is served by allowing such consumptive
> > registrations?
> > 
> 
> 
> The current policy has been in effect since ARIN-2011-3 was implemented in
> January 2012. One /16 allocated in over a decade doesn't represent a problem.
> Instead, it indicates a successful policy that balances the need for
> justification with the ability to provide substantial allocations. The data
> provided in the proposal doesn't demonstrate a problem. If we see a rash of
> /16 allocations, I might change my mind, but until then, I don't support a
> change at this time.
> 
> 1 16
> 8 20
> 22 22
> 39 24
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -- 
> ===============================================
> David Farmer               Email:farmer at umn.edu
> Networking & Telecommunication Services
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