RWHOIS Discussed At NANOG 23

[Richard Jimmerson]

ARIN conducted an open microphone session at the NANOG 23 meeting
this week in Oakland.  One of the questions coming from the NANOG
meeting attendees had to do with RWHOIS.

A meeting attendee pointed out that all ISPs are required to report
their reassignment information to ARIN via SWIP or RWHOIS.  He
further explained that implementing RWHOS for a large ISP has always
been an issue in the past and that the code is very raw.  He wanted
to know if there were efforts underway to produce a more stable RWHOIS
to reduce the implementation time for ISPs.

ARIN explained that they were aware of this issue and that they were
tasked to make improvements to RWHOIS at their last public policy
meeting (April 2001).  Since the last public policy meeting ARIN hired
a developer to make the improvements and that there is currently
a new beta available for testing.  Attendees were asked to review
the DBWG mailing list archives or to contact ARIN for more information
about beta testing.

Another meeting attendee observed that the code for RWHOIS is
insufficient and that ARIN needs to refocus their effort.  He
encourage the other meeting attendees to get involved and give
the developers at ARIN the requirements needed to develop RWHOIS
to be more effective and easier to use.

Following this discussion Global Crossing announced they are about
to release an open source suite of tools used for address space 
management along with RWHOIS integration.

Richard Jimmerson
Director of Operations
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)