[arin-tech-discuss] Preparation guide for RPKI 'surprise' outages (Was: Notice of upcoming maintenance to ARIN’s RPKI infrastructure)

[John Curran]

On 14 Jun 2021, at 7:48 PM, heasley <heas at shrubbery.net> wrote:
> 
>> ARIN announced an upcoming 'surprise' maintenance in July 2021. Full
>> details have not yet been disclosed - to make it a real surprise! :-)
>> I think this RPKI experiment is useful, as it can help ARIN better
>> understand its role and responsibilities in the ecosystem, which will
>> help making more informed decisions.
> 
> I do not like surprises and want to complain about this planned surprise.
> 
> I do not want to be woken for something for which I could have planned
> (ASes across the globe utilize this), nor have emergencies be fabricated
> for me.  Besides just being rude, it would be far more useful to observe
> the behavior from start to finish, than to react to a failure.
> 
> I also do not consider it ARIN's prerogative to test how clients react
> to failure of their pub point.  Every member has the ability to do this
> themselves, how and where they desire (such as a lab rather than prod.),
> and on their schedule.  Some likely experience publicaiton points being
> inaccessible daily.  ARIN's goal should be the near uninterrupted
> operation of their public facing services.

ARIN will publish additional information closer to the scheduled maintenance. 

> If ARIN requires a maintenance period, publish that period and adhere to
> it.  As our customers expect from us, I expect from ARIN.

See above.

> This is no longer a toy.

That is quite correct - and all the more reason to confirm that your systems are configured so that lack of availability results in graceful fallback per best practices. 

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers